


Heaven or Las Vegas

by macaronigrille



Category: The Umbrella Academy (Comics), The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: ADHD, Addiction, Angst, Anxiety Attacks, Child Abuse, Coping, DPDR, De-Realization, Dissociation, Drug Use, Emotional Abuse, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional Repression, Emotional neglect, Gaslighting, Hurt/Comfort, Hyperfixation, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Klaus stims bc I said so, Linguistics, Minor suicidal ideation, Neglect, No Spoilers, PTSD, Physical Abuse, Sass, Suicidal Thoughts, Telekinesis, Touch-Starved, Trauma Bonding, author is a huge fucking nerd, bildungsroman, character study with plot, de-personalization, horror imagery, klaus has adhd, men can cry too!, no S2 spoilers, no incest! ever!, reginald hargreeves can die, self discovery, telekinetic!klaus, typical Klaus warnings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:01:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 30,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25045045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/macaronigrille/pseuds/macaronigrille
Summary: At first, it’s intimidating, in a way. Knowing that he has the ability to do this, to soak up this wealth of information and retain it in a way his brain had previously refused to do. He always thought of himself as a doorway, a gate between the living and the dead. Translation is just a different kind of door. One that is also his to hone, but one that he is not burdened with.Or, a study of Klaus's relationship to foreign language, his powers, and his family.
Relationships: Ben Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Diego Hargreeves & Klaus Hargreeves, Klaus Hargreeves & Everyone, Klaus Hargreeves & Vanya Hargreeves, Number Five | The Boy & Klaus Hargreeves
Comments: 110
Kudos: 608





	1. The Fool

**Author's Note:**

> I noticed something crazy a little while ago. In the show, Klaus speaks German, French, and Spanish on different occasions. In the comics, Klaus picks up Vietnamese in Dallas, and there's Mon Dieu!, where he speaks in French as he relives the life of a deceased French general. Klaus having a connection to language checked a lot of my own personal boxes as a Linguistics major, and while I've read a lot of fanfic that includes Klaus' use of foreign language, I've hardly seen any that focuses on it. So, voila, here is my brainchild, sorry if this is a little too niche for some of you. This is my first time writing in this fandom so I hope you all are pleased :) Enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Fool is a card of new beginnings, opportunity, and potential.

At age nine, just a few days before his tenth birthday, Number Four is woken up by his brother, Number Two.

This would normally be a regular occurrence. Four always needs a while to finally fall asleep, and when he eventually does, he’s _out cold_ until he’s physically roused the next morning. He sleeps hard. 

Sometimes Six wakes him up with an excited summary of the book that he stayed up to read, sometimes Seven with a small smile and a gentle nudge, but usually it's Two, huffing and shaking him like it’s a chore instead of something that he takes pride in. Which Four knows he does. 

But today is irregular, because Two is almost vibrating with energy when Four finally creaks his eyes open to look at him. “Mom says she has a surprise for us,” Two reports, doing his best to conceal the excitement laced through his tone. His posture is solid and unwavering but Four's eyes notice the way his fingers flutter energetically at his sides. “Hurry up and get downstairs so we aren’t all waiting on you.” Then he turns and half-walks-half-jogs out of the room, leaving Four to scramble to get ready and follow him.

When Four finally arrives in the basement, chest heaving from the stairs, his family is waiting where they usually do for breakfast, seated around the table while their mom cooks at the stove. He’s the last one there, as usual. Fourteen little sets of toes are tapping against the floor, wiggling in their seats, their eyes shifting around the rooms suspiciously. None of them can tell what’s about to happen. Even Five, who everyone counts on to be the most knowledgeable of the group, has his lips pressed together and his eyebrows furrowed in confusion.

This isn’t normal for them. The mornings are among their favorite times, but mostly because they are so mundane. Their father wakes up earlier than the kids do and can’t feel bothered enough to wait for them, so they eat their first meal with the comfort of their mother instead of under the scrutiny of Reginald Hargreeves. Their mom was all routine and familiarity. This was unlike her.

Number Four is ripped from his thoughts by the sound of a plate sliding in front of him. Eggs and bacon, arranged to make a smiley face. He immediately pokes his fork into the yolk of the egg and watches as yellow drips, pooling over the fried egg white.

Their mother, completing their final breakfast ritual, swings a fruit basket up and with a particular grace and agility, places it at the center of the table. One and Two immediately lunge for the basket to pick the most perfect fruit they see as fast as humanly possible. Four eyes a nectarine directly in front of him, his favorite, and he’s about to reach for it when she says, “Now, I know that you have all wanted names for quite a while.” Like that _wasn’_ t the most shocking thing she could have possibly said.

The children cease their fidgeting immediately, shifting into a quiet, panicked stupor. They turn to stare at each other with wide eyes. Suddenly Four has lost his appetite completely.

If their mother notices the mood change in the room, she doesn’t acknowledge it, just continues to show her perfect white teeth in a red-lipped smile. “Your father didn’t deem it necessary to name you, but I had a talk with him and Pogo last night and they agreed that really, there’s no harm in it. Think of it as… something of an early birthday present. I’ve picked out a name for each of you.”

Four can feel his heart beating in his chest, and absently he wonders if he’s about to pass out. Then he remembers that he’s sitting down, so his head would just clunk against the table if he did. He crosses his arms in front of himself on the table to catch his fall and sits a little straighter.

He briefly makes eye contact with the rest of his siblings, who look to be feeling exactly the same way as himself. Six is pale, and Three’s mouth is open in a shocked silence. The only one of his siblings that seems to be faring well is Five, who is displaying his usual expression of intrigued indifference. 

He imagines of all of the names he’d heard throughout his life and felt jealous of. He’d quite like to be called something cool, like Zachary, or suave like Richard. He thinks about what it’ll feel like if he doesn’t like his name. _Impossible,_ he argues against himself, _Anything would be better than Four._

His mom predictably turns toward One first, who has a small smile on his face, but Four can see that he has a poorly concealed sheen of sweat glistening on his forehead. He watches him wriggle in his seat and thinks, _so much for our big, tough, leader._

“One,” their mom begins, and the tension in the room mounts until it becomes unbearable, “you will be called Luther. It means ‘army for the people’.” Her smile is steady and unwavering, but she waits for a response from One, _Luther_.

It occurs to Four that from now on, he’d have to look at One and call him Luther. He can’t quite place why that is so revolutionary, so unthinkable. Will a piece of him die with his old number?

There’s nothing but silence for a long moment. Luther looks down, and everyone begins to prepare for the worst when he starts to nod and a grin begins to form on his lips. “Thank you, mother,” he says quietly. A determined look sets across his face and Four almost rolls his eyes. Only One could transform something as personally significant as receiving a name into a call to action.

Then their mom turns to Two, across the table from Luther and on Four’s left. He’s also got a brave face on, but Two has always been more comfortable with his humanity than Number One. There’s a very gentle type of passion inside of him that Four can’t feel in One.

“Two, for you,” Four sees him swallow and his eyes fall shut, “Pogo has chosen the name _Diego_ . It means ‘supplanter’.”

The look on Diego’s face definitely means that he does _not_ know what the word _supplanter_ means, but Four can tell that he’s happy with the name that he’s been given. He sees him mouth it to himself, sees his eyes grow a little bright and misty. Immediately after, he shakes away the emotion, simply turns to his mother and says a brief but meaningful _thank you._

When Grace turns to Three, who has been sitting uncharacteristically quietly this entire time, Four can barely hear the name she’s been given over the blood pounding through his body. He’s sweating now, surely, maybe even shaking. He hears _Allison_ and _truth_ before allowing himself to tune out again. 

Then, their mom looks at Four. He can’t keep himself still anymore, anxiously awaiting his name with a concentration and presence he seldom feels in an organic way. The moments feel like years. He looks at his mother and acknowledges her yellow dress, the updo she’s got her hair pulled into this morning. He wants to commit this moment to memory. It gives him something to do while the seconds drag on. 

“Four,” she begins, and his stomach flips. “Your name will be Klaus,” she tells him. He doesn’t know if he’s ever heard that name before. He likes the hard consonant sound, the vowel shape that he’s not yet accustomed to. “It’s a German name, where you were born. It means ‘the people’s victory’.”

Four pauses for a moment. He doesn't understand why ‘the people’s victory’ suits him, or describes him, or whatever. There’s a celebration and joy in the phrase that he’s not sure he’s ever felt, or made anyone feel. 

“Klaus,” he echoes. _Klaus, Klaus, Klaus._ He wants to repeat it like a mantra, scribble it everywhere, mark up the walls until he gets yelled at. Instead, he says, “I didn’t know I was from Germany. I like it, mom. Thank you.” His reaction is smaller than he expected it to be. Clearly his siblings were expecting more commentary too, because the silence that followed seemed out of place.

Then Grace shifts toward Five, who interrupts her with a deep contemplative sigh before saying, “I don’t want a name.”

That’s when the room erupts into questions from his siblings, ‘ _what do you mean_ ’s and ‘ _why wouldn’t you want a name?_ ’s ruining the artificial tranquility resonating through the room. Klaus just smiles to himself. 

Klaus is completing his history assignment for school in the Hargreeves library when Germany is mentioned, briefly and in passing, in his textbook. He feels the last of his concentration drip out of his brain as he stares at the word. _Germany._ What does he know about Germany? He knows it’s in Europe, they speak German, their flag is black and yellow and red. He only knows that because the colors make him think about coral snakes.

He turns to Seven-- no, _Vanya_ \-- who is quietly studying next to him. Sometimes, all of the chatter inside and outside his brain is so loud that he forgets the people next to him can’t hear it. 

“Hey… Vanya?” He says, even though it still seems a little weird to call her that. They only got their names this week. They use their names to the point of redundancy, but they each appreciate the reminder that they have it too much to stop.

Vanya finishes the last sentence she’s reading before replying. “Yes, Klaus?” She hums.

“I was wondering,” he begins, starting to feel a little bit shy now that he knows he can’t retract his question. “Do you know where you’re from? Or where you were born, I mean, before Dad brought us all here.” 

Vanya brings her gaze up from her book, making note of the page before setting it down on the table in front of them. Klaus always liked that about her, she always gave him her undivided attention. The other siblings, even Ben sometimes, acted like they knew paying attention to Klaus was just another step to get him to leave them alone. She was never like that. 

“Mom said I’m from Russia, earlier, when she gave me my name.” That’s another thing he appreciated, she knew that he missed details sometimes and didn’t get disappointed when it continued to happen. “She never said what part of Russia, specifically, so that’s all I know.”

Behind Vanya, a young woman with a bloodstained dress comes into view. Klaus recognizes her. She speaks a language that he can’t understand, but her voice is raspy and rich enough that sometimes he just likes to listen to her. That is, until she gets close and the wound on her abdomen becomes too gory to look at.

“Huh,” Klaus finally replies. He suddenly closes his history textbook, finds its index, and flips to the page about Russia. “Huh,” he repeats, eyes flitting down the page to take in as much information as quickly as possible.

“This says that Russia’s the largest country in the world! Apparently, it takes up one-tenth of all of the land on Earth. Wow, lil’ sis, who would have thought.” He gives her a once-over and nudges Vanya with his elbow, who giggles through a small protest of “I’m not _that_ short." 

"Are too," Klaus tosses back.

“Hey, what about Germany?” Vanya asks, knowing better than to continue to disagree. “Find it, I wanna read about it.” Klaus feels a stab of anxiety in his gut for reasons he barely understands, but flips through the book nonetheless. 

The first thing he notices is that the Germany section is bigger than the Russia section. It has all of the same sections, _introduction, geography, plants and animals,_ but the history section goes much more in depth than Russia’s, continuing on the back of the second page.

Vanya suddenly becomes impatient and scooches over closer to Klaus, pulling the book between them both. They both quietly read at the same time, through the border countries and the economy and eventually through the synopsis of its history, ending with the country divided into two by the Berlin Wall. 

“I thought that got knocked down,” Vanya frowns. 

“Me too,” Klaus agrees. He flips back to the very beginning to the copyright page, where sure enough, together they read _published in 1987._

 _“_ Damn,” Klaus sighs. He feels robbed. The Russian ghost from before lets out a long sob and phases through the wall.

Vanya just picks up her own novel from the table and shakes her head, a knowing smile on her face. “Looks like you’re gonna have to find another book,” she says.

“Yep,” Klaus says. And like he’s run by a motor, he’s off to rummage through the library’s shelves.

\--

Hours later, Klaus is in his room surrounded by books, all pilfered from the shelves of the library. He found several about Germany, including some essays about the Berlin Wall in particular, some about the World Wars, and some regarding industrialization and economic theory.

He starts with the most basic one, after he takes one look at the essays and immediately begins to feel overwhelmed. He’s always been a good reader, never needed extra help with comprehension, but the authors seem to speak in a vernacular that he’s never heard before. He figures some background information would do him good.

The first book starts really early, at the beginning of the German monarchy. He learns about unification, then industrialization, then Kaiser Wilhelm and World War I and before he knows it, he’s being called for dinner _four hours later._

He races downstairs to the dinner table, barely managing not to trip over his own feet in the process, and stands behind his seat (right in between Diego and Ben) with what he hopes is an air of indifference to mask how disoriented he is.

He’s told that he does this a lot. Any of the siblings get him talking about something and it’s hard for him to realize that he’s been going on about something for too long, or been dedicating an absurd amount of time to a task or a hobby. It’s like he blinks, and suddenly the time has passed. He doesn’t know how they _don’t_ do it. 

Ben shoots him a look somewhere between amusement and concern, checks the hallway that their father always arrives from, then leans in and asks, “where have you been all day? It’s been almost silent since school, it’s weird not being interrupted by the noise you make.” He notices their siblings glance over, clearly harboring the same question.

Klaus just shrugs. “I was reading. Lost track of time.”

Diego huffs. “Must have been super interesting to keep you quiet for that long, I didn’t even know that was possible.” 

Klaus resists the immediate urge to recoil. He’s used to Diego saying things like this, it’s just how he expresses affection, through little remarks he certainly doesn't intend to be as cutting as they are. He doesn’t like the idea that his siblings only see him as a chatterbox and nothing more.

“Well it was,” Klaus says. “I'm reading about Germany. It’s really interesting, just ask Vanya.” Ben opens his mouth to reply, but that’s when Reginald comes through the door. His back straightens instinctually, and then his father booms, “ _Sit,”_ and the conversation ends about as abruptly as it began.


	2. The Magician

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Magician is numbered one, the number of possibility and new beginnings. It is a sign that you have all of the skills and resources you need to be successful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for depiction of a panic/anxiety attack! take care of yourselves.

Days pass. Their birthday comes and goes, and it is exactly as uneventful and disappointing as it always is. Their mother bakes cupcakes, they don’t sing happy birthday because their father dislikes the noise, and they each have a single cake and nothing more. Sweets don’t fit in their meal plan. He receives a single book as a gift: an unwrapped German to English dictionary that was already waiting for him on his dresser when he woke up.

Klaus spends his time in his room, or the library, or wherever he wants to take a book that day (he sometimes sneaks into Diego’s room to read, just for the change in scenery). At least one history book follows him wherever he goes. As soon as he has a moment to himself, his nose is tucked into the pages.

He learns about nationalism, when Germany became infected with it, what made it dangerous. He thinks about this team and about Luther’s devotion to his father’s cruelty. 

(He knows the reading is something of a form of escapism, it gives him something to do that isn’t listening to the ghosts wander aimlessly through the mansion. But he can’t help but see parallels between the academy and Germany. He’s always felt that some of them, mostly Luther, but sometimes Allison and Diego too, burn too fast and too bright. They have a passion towards the noble cause that their father put them on despite it hurting them.)

Learning about Germany gives him a new type of purpose, he realizes one afternoon after his mom subtly reminds him that he needs to eat and drink water. Suddenly he doesn’t just belong to the Academy, he’s a member of a community, something large and old and stronger than himself. It’s not all up to him anymore. 

He finishes all but one of the books in about two weeks. The only one left is the dictionary. He's somewhat hesitant to open it, because it seems like it could be boring.

He examines it in cautious hands and opens it. There’s a brief introduction in German. Klaus finds that there’s something exhilarating about seeing a language he can’t understand, knowing there’s an entire world behind indecipherable text, despite the frustration he feels when he realizes he really has _no idea_ what it’s saying. 

He takes out a pen and a sheet of notebook paper from one of his studies and looks up the first word that he sees. _Als._ It takes him a few minutes to find that it means _as_ and he writes it on the paper. It’s a long preface. Then he memorizes the second word, _ich, I,_ and just keeps going, keeps flipping back and forth.

A couple sentences in and he feels like he’s about to give up. This is _so_ much harder than he expected it to be. The individual words he’s stringing together barely mean anything. There’s clearly a gap of information that is keeping him from understanding all of this and it's odd to him that he knows how to do it in English, but just can't articulate where the languages meet in the center. It drives him crazy, but it’s the most interesting puzzle he’s encountered in a while. The academy’s homework assignments are usually tedious, and he struggles more with sitting down to dedicate time to an assignment than the assignment itself. He feels out of his depth.

He finds a German grammar book in the library the next time he looks, and then that’s all he needs to dive in.

His siblings watch with astoundment for the months following as Klaus teaches himself a language. Grace and Pogo agree to integrate German into his studies, but the entire house knows that the brunt of Klaus’ understanding comes from his free time, where he pours over German grammar and starts to read the German children’s books he receives with an unnatural ease. It's shocking, but ultimately endearing. It keeps Klaus quiet, which makes Reginald happy, but gives him a burst of energy and liveliness that his siblings enjoy. He smiles more, now. There are still moments when they can see his eyes focus on something that none of them can see, but he learns how to shake off the creeping fear that he has and focus his own energy into something more productive, rather than annoying his siblings to distract himself.

Of course, he lacks a conversational flow, having no one to speak it with. He incorporates little phrases into his vocabulary in a futile attempt to compensate, new words that surprise his siblings but make them giggle at the unfamiliarity. _Danke, schnell._ They are hardly shocked when after a few months, they find Klaus breaking into some of the German novels in the house and he starts to read them as fast as Ben reads his.

Five furrows his brows one day when Klaus brings a book to the dinner table. Usually Klaus opts to eat as quickly as possible so that he can be excused, but today he just leisurely flips through the pages, the tiniest frowns and smiles forming on his face as he digests the story. He’s always been so expressive.

He jumps into his room that night, to find him in his bed, _still reading._ He doesn’t give him the opportunity to greet him before he starts speaking. “I’m curious, and thought that you might have an answer for me. When did my brother get body snatched?”

Klaus responds a little late. He keeps reading for a moment before his eyes drift up to see Five and he does an almost comical double take. “Jesus, Five.”

“I mean, it’s not that I’m complaining,” Five continues, eyeing him. “You seem happier. But all the same, I never would have expected you to act like this. Usually you get more energetic and boisterous when you have your… obsessions, like this, but now you seem…”

Klaus understands. He was always the one who was blowing off his schoolwork, using his study time to do other things, procrastinating. The switch to a studious, more restful Klaus must be confusing. He pinches his brows together and dog-ears the page, just in case he loses it. “I don’t know,” he says honestly. “German has just been so fun. It’s so much more intricate than English, but it’s what I need to compare it back to, because it's what I speak. Which makes it hard, because you’re learning new ideas and new words too.” 

He pauses a moment, pulling his thoughts together, and Five just waits patiently until he speaks again, expression more open than he’d seen from Five in a while. “It’s super challenging, but in a good way. My brain just understands this. And it wears me out a lot, too. Or at least it used to when I first started.” The mental exercise made sleeping easier, made his concentration… marginally better. He supposes _that_ problem won't go away any time soon.

And it calms the ghosts down too. Klaus elects to leave that part out, because he hates talking about the ghosts around his siblings, and can see how it scares them knowing that there are things in the room that they can’t see. He doesn’t know how to explain it, but he notices the ghosts less now and when they’re around, they’re easier to shrug off and dismiss. 

Five hums deep in thought, and Klaus can almost picture him jotting down notes. Then he opens his mouth, and he’s expecting to hear tons of speculation about the nature of his powers, but Five just says, “that’s really interesting, Klaus. Good for you,” and stares at him a little longer before a blue _pop_ takes him out of his room. 

It feels good, Klaus realizes. To be taken seriously by his brother, to be commended for his own work instead of an ability that he did not choose. He likes this.

As they get older, Klaus notices, they are permitted to leave the mansion more. They can’t leave on their own or in groups yet, and none of them are really brave enough to try to sneak out. But their training is increasing with the warning that eventually, they will go on their first mission, and they need to be ready for when it happens.

The mansion has training rooms. Multiple, in fact. Some are better for Allison’s or Klaus’s powers, while others are better equipped with targets for Diego or measured lines on the floor to help Five with his precision jumps. Ben and Luther are where things get more dangerous. They both knew they had the capability to do mass amounts of damage, and were hesitant to push themselves during training because of it.

They have empty reinforced rooms that can take a beating. But their father wants to push them more than he ever has, so at dinner one day, just before Reginald puts a record on, he announces that he has purchased a building located in a remote location that they will be using to train. 

Klaus knows this isn’t a good sign. He doesn’t know how much more intense training can become, and he really doesn’t want himself for any of his siblings to find out.

Because the unrest is certainly growing. Klaus didn’t like training before, but that was mostly because he knew his powers were less… _fun_ for him to use compared to his siblings. Before, Five had found practicality in honing his, while Diego had fun learning to use his for his own and other’s entertainment, saying things like, _hey, do you think I can make the trash can in the kitchen from here,_ while sitting in the living room. Klaus had never experienced the personal advantage that Allison gained from her powers, had never used them to receive any gratification outside of approval and praise.

Now, he can spot the fatigue in each and every one of his siblings. Every day, one of them returns from their special training looking like they’re an inch from collapsing. Klaus had helped carry Ben to and from his room before when he’s too tired and pained to do it himself. Luther would walk to the breakfast table stiff and sore from exerting his muscles. Five would have dizzy spells when he jumped too much, where on occasion the people around him have had to catch him when his knees buckle and he loses his balance. They don’t talk about it, only ever return thankful glances to each other and keep an eye out when one of them is acting strange. Talking about it makes it real, and none of them are ready to admit that what’s happening to them is real.

(Klaus has started to have nightmares, where he’s in a dark place and the cold that seeps into him is oppressive. He can’t move, can’t see, but knows he’s not alone from the voices that echo off of the walls and surround him. He always wakes up in a cold sweat, unable to fall back asleep.)

Now, every Sunday, Klaus and his siblings pile into the family car to go to the enhanced training facility Reginald had recently invested in. It’s a little farther upstate, after the city begins to melt into the suburb and the suburb melts into rolling, rural fields. From the outside, it doesn’t look like anything special, resembling something like an airplane hangar. From the inside, it looks a lot like the other training rooms in the house, but it’s larger, a wide open warehouse. There are multiple workers there, and Klaus has no idea what their jobs are, because the facility _really seems_ empty. But he doesn’t mind because the only company they ever get is each other, and for Klaus, the ghosts.

The ghosts are here, too. And they follow the workers, in staggering numbers. It makes Klaus sick to think about sometimes. Groups of ghosts, anywhere from five to twenty of them at a time, slowly parade behind them, occasionally shouting curses or obscenities. They are so angry at them. He doesn’t want to think about the things they must have done to warrant that type of vengeful haunting.

He’s sitting on the cold concrete floor one day, petulantly waiting for his involvement in his training. He thinks of kids who make dirt castles during their baseball games and bitterly chuckles to himself upon realizing that this is the closest thing he’ll have to that experience.

His eyes, acting of their own volition, drift to find a ghost, about a 20 year old man with blood soaking the collar of his shirt, somehow still dripping from the laceration in his neck. He’s one of the quieter ones, always choosing to sulk in the back of the mob of ghosts, occasionally invading the workers’ personal space to give them a chill they can’t shake. He can tell he’s relatively new. He’s not quite human, but he hasn’t begun to change like ghosts do when they don’t pass on. He's having a bad day, he can tell because he's been shouting at the workers that can't hear him to relieve his frustration. 

Klaus doesn’t notice that he’s zoning out until the ghost he was apparently _still staring at_ makes a noise at him, a grunt of anger that shocks him enough to shake him out of his reverie. He knows he’s really touched a nerve when he starts to pace back and forth, muttering under his breath, and he’s about to apologize to seemingly thin air when he’s interrupted.

The ghost gestures toward Klaus, _“Quoi, qu’est-ce qu’as-tu?”_ And before he knows it he’s speaking so quickly that Klaus feels a wash of fear roll through him, his extremities going cold as his heart rate picks up. He doesn’t speak French, doesn’t know anything about it. Plus, he has never been good with yelling, especially at him, especially men. It makes something inside of him lock up.

The ghost continues, gesturing to the worker, the activity making even more blood spurt out of his wound. Every once and a while Klaus can catch a word, an accented “‘ _Argreeve,”_ but the majority of his outburst is lost to the language and the speed at which he talks. _French is nasally_ , he notices absentmindedly. 

Finally, the ghost seems to grasp that Klaus can’t understand him, because in a fit of anger he lashes out at the worker, reaching out to slap him on the back of the head. What neither of them expect, however, is that the slap _actually makes an impact, somehow_. The noise of the impact echoes off of the tall ceilings in the warehouse. In Klaus’s periphery he can see Ben and Five turn to investigate.

The worker whips his head around, raises a defensive hand, and opens his mouth to yell, but sees nothing, just Klaus sitting on the floor across the entire distance of the room. He simply stares when they make eye contact, too shocked that the man had touched the worker to do something snarky or make his siblings laugh.

Everything stops for a moment as he realizes that the ghosts can touch him too, if he slapped the worker, it means they can hurt him, it’s only a matter of time before they hurt him--

Klaus’s eyes snap back to the ghost, who has an expression of confused wonder on his pale face. He stops for a moment, the anger lost to his surprise, and holds his hands up toward his face to gape at in wonder. Then his wide eyes turn to Klaus, and he takes a stuttering step forward.

The movement is slow, and interrupted by the shock that the ghost is in, but it’s still enough to make Klaus flinch and jump upright. He feels weak, he hates that he can feel tears pricking his eyes, but he can’t shake the growing feeling that he is in danger, he needs to run. He can’t breathe. The air feels thick and damp, even though he _knows_ that the space is usually dry enough to make Diego’s hands crack. 

He starts to step back blindly in an attempt to put as much distance between him and the man as he can. He catches Diego’s attention (if he were in the right state of mind he’d laugh about the success rate of Diego’s Big Brother Instinct, how he always somehow seems to know when Klaus is in trouble) but when he reaches out to Klaus, he involuntarily flinches again and stumbles away, starting to pick up the pace, turning and running. 

Over his shoulder, the ghost isn’t pursuing him anymore, but all of the dead in the warehouse are starting to realize that they are visible to him. They’re beginning to come closer to investigate. Klaus feels like he’s about to throw up. He presses himself up against a wall, _dear god they’re everywhere_ , lets out a high keen and protects his head with his arms.

Suddenly, his hands are growing hot. In what feels like a final act of defense, he lets out a scream and feels a rush of _something_ go through his body, and it feels like all of him is shuddering. When he opens his eyes, they are all gone. He’s met with 5 of his siblings staring at him with wide eyes, the worker in the room looking like he’s about to piss himself, and Reginald standing strong. There’s a sadistic gleam in his eye as he clicks a pen and jots something in his notebook.

His limbs feel like they’re made of jelly. Diego and Ben are rushing over to him, and he can’t suppress the urge to recoil at first, but after a moment he lets himself be handed to them, pliant and small. He can’t feel tears on his face, but he can feel them on his neck, soaking his shirt’s collar. “It’s okay, Klaus,” Diego says. “We’ve got you.” Klaus grabs his uniform with white knuckles and shakes in his arms, and then he can feel the adrenaline draining from him and the world goes black. 

He wakes up in his own bed later that night with a headache as disorienting as it is painful. It’s dark out. The analog clock next to his bed reads 9:07 PM. 

When he tries to sit up, his head spins. Instead he just collapses back and presses his palms over his eyes, focusing on the feeling of air entering and exiting his lungs.

His mind drifts back to the French ghost at the warehouse. He had looked just as surprised as Klaus had felt. And there was something else in his eyes, _confusion_. He hadn’t meant to hurt Klaus, only talk to him, confide in him. Of course, the rest of the ghosts that had surrounded him were likely not as harmless, but he felt bad for denying him of his moment of being seen, of being heard.

He hears high heels clack against the hardwood of the floor, coming up from the stairs and steadily growing louder as they eventually enter his room and stop in his doorway. “Klaus,” Grace greets, unaffected as always by the trauma that surrounded them and brought Klaus into this particular circumstance. “How are you feeling? You missed dinner, you poor thing, but I can bring you leftovers if you’re feeling hungry.” 

Klaus sighs. He’s starving, but he’d also really like to just go back to sleep and pretend this hadn’t happened. “I’m not hungry mother, thank you though,” he smiles. He’s never had to fake compassion for her.

She puts her hand on his forehead, and something in Klaus tries to leap out of him at the contact. Tears well in his eyes from seemingly nowhere, and he forces them down, waits for her hand to retreat, because he knows it will.

It does. “Your temperature is perfectly normal, so I’ll leave you to get some rest,” Grace says. She’s about to turn and make her way out the door when Klaus freezes and calls out, “Wait!”

She does. She waits a second to react and turn around, just like a human, and a moment passes where Klaus can’t help but be amazed at the thought that went into making Grace. It was sometimes hard to forget that she too was just another possession of Reginald’s. 

“Do we have any French language books in the library? Dictionaries, grammar, and low level reading?”

His mom smiles down at him and says, “I believe we have only three with us at the moment, but I can purchase more to integrate into your studies,” she says. “Would you like that, Klaus?”

Affection heats his chest from the inside out and turns his fingers and cheeks warm. “Yes, I would, mother. Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Just letting you know that I have quite a lot of this story written already, so there's more to come from this! Stay tuned! Posting schedule will probably be weekly :) Here's two in one day, because they're both leetle.


	3. The High Priestess

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The High Priestess signifies spiritual enlightenment, inner illumination, divine knowledge and wisdom. She is a sign to trust your intuition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is where the plot starts picking up you guys. !!

Klaus is pissed.

He has spent the last ten years of his life wiggling in chairs, willing himself to stay focused on math (some of it was interesting, but he wanted to see the numbers and understand the theory more than he did) and the sciences (fascinating, but boring logistically, too many calculations), because that’s how he felt he had to prove he was smart. He _knows_ how his siblings and his father look at him, and Klaus is _so so so_ eager to please, but they have only ever shook their heads at him, talked down to him, gotten frustrated when he lost concentration, used his name as an antonym, the antithesis to Five’s intelligence. They expect so little of him, always the lookout in their skirmishes, always the first, besides Vanya, to get left out of their family discussions. 

And now he knows it’s all bullshit. Klaus _is_ smart. This is how his brain works. He can wrestle with words and phrasing all day, gets off on grammatical intricacies, on the hidden meaning and ideology behind every language he discovers. It hurts that this isn’t a kind of intelligence he could recognize in himself until just now, that only now does he have the ability to bite back and argue and stand up for himself. He hates that there was a time where he felt truly inadequate because of his attention problems and perceived intelligence. He hates that he let them talk down to him and _agreed_ with them, let them affect his self-image in a way he was just beginning to bounce back from. 

French comes to him easier than German did. The sentence structure feels a little bit more natural in his brain, and he’s had practice teaching himself a language now that he actually knows how to go about it. He doesn’t fumble between vocabulary and conjugation and grammar anymore, he knows where to start and where to end. In no time he’s plowing through _Le Petit Prince_ and the other books that Grace gave him. What’s better is that there’s a French speaking ghost in the house. She’s one of the less lucid ones, he probably couldn’t hold a conversation with her, doesn’t even want to risk approaching her, but he hears the noises that she makes in her throat, the nasally vowels and r’s, and quietly parrots them to himself, enjoying the feeling of the .new vowels in his cheeks, the way it makes his tongue a little bit sore. 

After that, he finds that Italian is similar to French, the Romance languages form a Venn diagram which makes a few of them a key to the rest. He begs Grace to buy him movies to watch that are entirely in German and French and Italian and repeats the lines to himself, takes hours to go through them and compare the subtitled translation to the literal, feel the way the words stretch and shape. 

At first, it’s intimidating, in a way. Knowing that he has the ability to do this, to soak up this wealth of information and retain it in a way his brain had previously refused to do. He always thought of himself as a doorway, a gate between the living and the dead. Translation is just a different kind of door. One that is also his to hone, but one that is _his choice._ Being the Seance always felt like a responsibility, something that was thrust upon him regardless of his own opinion. Translation is his own child, something that comes truly just from himself. His powers and his skills are two sides of the same coin, really. 

Which might be why training is becoming easier now. Ben and Five think that him using his brain more often is giving him more mental energy and focus in the same way that meditation gives a person more patience and presence. _The Matilda Effect,_ they’d called it. The idea that as he learned more and strengthened his neural connections, _strengthened your brain’s muscles, like a workout,_ Five had mansplained to him _,_ his powers would become easier to control and manage.

It had some promise, Klaus knew. It was a good model. But he also knew that he was looking at things differently, looking at the dead as not a variation upon the living, but a separate idea altogether. The living and the dead coincided in some places and deviated in others. It was barely _similar_ to learning a language, it _was_ learning a language. The ghosts were terrifying still, but once he began to see their reality as separate from his, his understanding grew, as did his powers. He suspected both had an equal influence on his recent success. 

His recent success, which, as of recently, has been tenfold. 

It starts fairly abruptly, but makes perfect sense to Klaus. Prior to now, Klaus’s thoughts have always been jumbled and messy. They’d occurred at a frequency and speed which was difficult, sometimes impossible, for him to keep up with. He’d been able to hyper-focus on one thing for an amount of time, but even it was something that he didn't feel he had much control over. Sometimes he’d sit down and blink and hours would pass. It was productive, but not useful.

But now, he sometimes closes his eyes and just breathes. His brain is tired out enough that it allows moments of silence and serenity to peek through, where he doesn’t feel like he’s standing in six places at once. He’d missed on a calmness he didn’t know he could experience before. It’s nice, he realizes, to just exist and feel the weight of your limbs, to pull air into your lungs and revel in the natural sensations of your body. He’s never really purposefully sat down for the sole act of meditation, but he imagines that’s what it’s like, knows if he wanted to, he could. 

It’s in these moments that it starts. It begins with things he doesn’t even notice, he’ll be drawing and coloring to soothe his mind and he’ll lose the colored pencil he just had, only to find it on the opposite side of himself. At first, he just thinks that he’s too distracted to recognize where he’s putting things down, but then it starts to happen so frequently that he makes a point to put specific colors in specific places and _still_ finds that his things become disorganized at an alarming rate. It scares him at first, he thinks that the ghosts might be becoming corporeal to tease him, slowly driving him insane step by patient step.

It doesn’t help that after the incident at the training facility, he and Hargreeves hadn’t been able to figure out what had made the French ghost (how he’d wished he knew his name) corporeal. For the moment, Klaus was excused from Sunday training on a safety precaution. The ghosts at the mansion were familiar with him, whereas the ones at the facility were strange and restless. They were all _pissed_ that Hargreeves was working with the people who had killed them, and, in Klaus’s own opinion, rightfully so. He knew that these were usually the type of ghost to lash out at him on any normal day, so if an incident similar happened again, it wouldn't be a safe environment for him to be in.

He was happy to be out, for the most part. Even if he did want to talk to the ghost and try to understand him better, to see if he could gather any information about what had happened that day. (And the thought of having a conversation in French was too exciting to pass up, he seldom was given opportunities to use all of the skills he’d learned outside of his powers.)

But he's got more free time now, and it starts to happen in other places, like when he’s cleaning his room and finds that objects are constantly misplacing themselves, only to be found knocked over or moved to a different surface, whether it be another shelf or the floor. He’ll be deep in thought when a book will be knocked off his shelves, or two of his posters will fall at once. Part of why it’s so frustrating is it seems like it only occurs when he lets his guard down.

He turns to Five about it, naturally. Five is the most empirical of all of them, able to come up with sound theories from just observation, and above all he was the most open-minded of everyone. It was almost ironic, actually; his combined logical intelligent brain and self-confidence meant that he was usually the first to accept the unbelievable, as long as the facts pointed in the right direction. 

He brings it up as he normally asks help from Five; by bursting into his room without so much as a knock. Five is sitting at his desk over an opened notebook, scribbling equations down and occasionally glancing over to a textbook. He doesn’t look up at him when he enters, doesn’t even flinch, only greets him with a monotone “ _Klaus_ ,” and flits his eyes over the pages as if he knew he was about to ask him to wrap it up.

“I need your help,” Klaus says simply. 

Five purses his lips, still not quite interested. “So you do,” he agrees. 

Something stirs inside of Klaus, the instinctual voice in his head that tells him he isn’t as important as the others, that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He forces it down and swallows, building resolve through the tension in his muscles. “Yeah, I do actually. Something really weird is happening, and it seems like exactly the type of shit that you’d like to poke at with a stick. So are you in, or what?”

Five huffs. He looks up from his work for the first time and spins in his chair to face Klaus. “Explain what’s going on,” he orders, and Klaus suppresses the urge to roll his eyes. “And quickly too, if this isn’t worth my time, I really have more important things to be doing.”

“You’re such an asshole, Five,” Klaus hisses, but his feet stay planted on the floor, unwilling to give up the opportunity to figure this out. “I think…” he begins, before hesitating and starting over. “I _know,_ that something weird is happening. My things keep moving when I’m not touching them…” he swallows down the urge to give into his brother’s hard stare. “I wouldn’t come to you if I weren’t absolutely sure that something’s happening. I don't understand what’s going on.”

Five narrows his eyes and seems to scan Klaus over once, as if he’s picking him apart, checking for signs of deceit. Then, he sighs and stands, says “we might as well get this over with,” but the aloof facade is broken by the fact that Five has _never done anything he didn’t want to do._

They get to Klaus’s room in just a few moments, and when they return Five glances over the spilled glass of water that was discarded on his floor minutes prior. Klaus barely suppresses a shiver. 

Some minutes pass where they just stand in silent observation, collecting evidence to pour over. But nothing happens. Klaus’s heart drops in his chest and a dread settles in him. It was as if every interaction he had with powers and the Beyond were just supposed to gaslight him into believing he’d actually gone crazy. God forbid, they actually bother him at their opportune times. 

Klaus spots the exact moment when Five begins to lose his focus; his eyes glaze over a little and resume little motions, _calculations,_ his brows drawing in focus. The guilt sweeps in for just a second before Klaus just thinks, _fuck it._

“You know what?” He says and shakes his head, producing a little bit of a chuckle from within his throat. “Go back to your room. I’ll figure it out. I think I might be onto something,” he lies. 

Five is arrogant and egotistical, but shockingly observant. He watches Klaus for a long time, then, and Klaus can’t help but to squirm a bit under his gaze, drawing into himself. There’s no doubting that Five knows he’s bullshitting him. But eventually he gives in, just says, “I’ll be in my room,” a shy offer, _come find me if you need me,_ and then he’s gone. 

Klaus feels utterly alone in his room. The cup sits dangerously on the floor for a moment longer and he finds himself locked onto it, staring as if it were dangerous and would move again when he least expected it. Which, he knew, would probably actually happen.

He’s about to shut the door, moving towards the doorknob, when he spots Ben poking his head out from his own room. He looks a little bit nervous, but that was something of a permanent expression on Ben’s face.

He clears his throat and says, “You okay, Klaus?” Real soft, tentative, reaching out and not expecting to find hold. 

Klaus lets him. “By some definition,” he responds after a moment’s thought. “Are you okay?” 

Ben startles a little. But nods his head, slowly at first, and then he thinks differently and corrects himself, tips his head to the side in a _so-so_ kind of motion. “I think so,” he says and offers a little smile. 

Klaus smiles back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey folks! Thanks for reading! Kudos and comment, yada yada. y'all's comments actually make my day uwu. next update coming sometime near july 10th. its a big one! lots of things happen! lots of ben and klaus being best of friends! and five! stick around!
> 
> also, meaning to get y'all's opinion on this-- would you prefer shorter, more frequent updates (every few days or so), or weekly, longer updates?


	4. The Hierophant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Hierophant represents an established set of spiritual values and beliefs, and suggests that you turn to tradition for answers to your problems. It recommends working with a teacher or mentor to learn in a structured manner.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mad dialogue heavy. Hope you enjoy x

After that, Klaus finds himself turning to Ben more. They’d always been particularly close, but they didn’t speak as much as they did with the others. Something drew them together that they didn’t ignore, per say, but also didn’t entertain. They were both… different, than their other siblings. They were both told that they looked sickly and pale, and they both carried an energy that confused the others. Besides Klaus’s tendency to make the room drop a few degrees in temperature when he entered it, they both brought a heaviness into the air around them, an electricity that the other siblings just didn’t possess.

Klaus makes up for it with his boisterous, loud personality. It both snuffles out the darkness and distracts from it. However, Ben has always been too kind, too shy to take away from the fact that he feels foreign, almost otherworldly. 

It freaks the rest of them out, he knows. Ben has  _ never  _ freaked Klaus out. Even when they were younger, the tentacles, the Horrors, have never seemed scary to him. In fact, it almost feels familiar to be around him. Every time Ben has to release the Horrors, he waits for the surprise, the nausea, the disgust. He watches their siblings and even their father avert their eyes, and he feels no urge to. It’s weird to lack a taboo that everyone else feels. He figures it's like lacking a sense. 

Similarly, Ben seems to always know exactly what to say to Klaus. He still doesn’t understand it, but sometimes they make eye contact from across a room and it feels like they’re sharing something between each other. Ben just  _ gets  _ it like no one else can. He’s never really shared with Ben how his powers work, feels a little guilty for seeing such horrible things around such a kind boy sometimes, but Ben can just be with him and understand what he needs, even when he doesn’t know what the problem is. Being seen like that is sometimes scary. They both know no one else can understand in the way they do, and it feels like confiding in each other would somehow be too much, like they wouldn’t be able to take the feeling of being heard, wholly and unequivocally. 

After the day when Klaus asks Five for help, Klaus decides to let himself indulge in the simple comfort of Ben a little more than usual. Since he’s allowed himself to investigate the uncertain and challenged his mind and powers to grow, he feels more  _ worthy  _ of Ben. Beforehand, it was hard to ignore the obvious differences between the two boys: Ben was a nerd, and Klaus was not. Ben spent all of his time reading and Klaus spent his time annoying his siblings and caregivers. It was a juxtaposition that felt a little bit forced, and he was always terrified of annoying Ben, who was probably too gentle to tell him so or ask him to leave. 

He starts to let himself into Ben’s room when he has spare time. He gives a small knock as a warning before strolling in like he owns the place, talking about something that would draw Ben’s attention away from the book he was reading. Ben was always reading.

He swings open the door one day and doesn’t feel any words coming up, nothing to babble about or distract Ben. Ben himself just looks up from his book for a moment to greet Klaus with a kind smile before returning to reading. He looks peaceful.

Klaus debates just leaving, the silence becoming a little uncomfortable and disarming. He  _ likes  _ to make jokes, it brings him comfort, and he doesn’t like to be around people when it doesn’t come to him as easily. Seriousness has never looked good on him, after all.

But then he notices the book that Ben has in his hands and curiosity gets the better of him. He sidles up to where he’s reading on the bed, slowly, like he’s still trying to make up his mind, and then says  _ fuck it  _ and asks, “hey, what’re you reading, brother mine?”

Ben furrows his brows a little bit, taking a minute longer to process that Klaus was interested in one of his own literary pursuits. “It’s, uh,” he takes another look at the cover even though he knows exactly what it’s called, he’s been reading it for what feels like forever. “ _ The Hobbit,”  _ his brain finally supplies. “By Tolkien. It’s really good, I think you would like it. Even if it is in English,” he says with a light kind of chuckle. 

Klaus steps forward and gently takes the book in his own hands, turning it so Ben is still holding it, but he can see the cover. It’s all black, with a painted image of a gaunt, pale creature in a cave. It brings back unpleasant memories of some of the ghosts he’s seen on rarer occasions, so he swallows and presses it back into the position Ben was holding it in prior. “Looks interesting,” he grimaces.

Ben immediately picks up on the tension in his tone, pauses for a second, taking in the openness in Klaus’s posture, the honesty that comes through so naturally when it’s not being covered up with wisecracks and humor. 

(Ben understood how Klaus suffered because of his powers. Their trauma was clear as day. It resulted in an outward expression of love and concern that sometimes Klaus didn't recognize, didn’t know how to respond to. It makes him lock up. And then it makes him feel extra guilty about how he sputters afterward, never having felt such unfiltered, undisguised care that hadn’t been programmed into his mother.)

But he shakes it off as soon as he can as Ben scoots over, patting the spot next to him on his tiny twin bed. Klaus does not protest, just clambers up onto the mattress, ignores how his body screams for him to get closer, to bask in the feeling of sitting so close to someone before he inevitably leaves. 

“You know,” Ben says, tearing him out of his thoughts. “Tolkien was a linguist too, like you. He created a whole different language for the elves in  _ The Lord of the Rings.  _ People become fluent in it, it’s neat.”

Klaus hums, giving him the time to process a little bit more before he speaks again. “That’s really interesting,” he finally says after a minute. “I didn’t know you could just make a language.”

Ben nods his head and says, “Well, languages exist somehow. Someone has to make them.” A beat passes before he continues, “You should read this after I’m finished. It might be interesting to have such a similar perspective to the author. And also,  _ everyone _ should read Tolkien,” he says with a smile, like it’s obvious. “He is a genius with imagery.”

Klaus nods, and doesn’t think much of it as he agrees. He reads so much, it might be fun to branch out a little bit.

It’s about a week later that he finds the book on his nightstand when he finally retires to his room after a long day of training. He’s physically exhausted after having exerted himself so much (he doesn’t understand why his dad expects them all to match up to Luther, who quite clearly had a physical advantage over the rest of them), but he finds it in himself to pick it up after having a relaxing hot shower to soothe his overworked muscles. 

_ In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit. Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole, filled with the ends of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down on or to eat: it was a hobbit-hole, and that means comfort. _

The simplicity of the picture and concurring complexity of the language is nice. He falls asleep feeling cozy and warm despite the way the screaming of the manor’s ghosts echoes through the halls, unheard by anyone except himself. 

The next day he thanks Ben by wandering into his room again. He knocks, always, before his stumbling feet pad into the room. Ben is also crawling into his dual position, half-laying, half-sitting in his bed with a book open and face-down on his nightstand. He looks up at Klaus, who offers a small smile and simply holds his own book up in his hands.

Ben’s face  _ lights up _ , and Klaus can see him make the effort to calm himself down, sees how he scolds himself, crushes his rising joy into an energy closer to ambivalence. It makes Klaus upset, because he knows how it feels, but then Ben is giving him room on the twin sized mattress and patting the space next to him. An invitation.

Klaus takes it wordlessly, allows the butterflies in his stomach to calm, and joins him. They open their books together in a comfortable silence, ignoring the something inside of them both that screams  _ is this what companionship is? Am I allowed to call this that? _

It’s nice, and weirdly intimate and personal. It happens again in a few days when Klaus can’t quite convince himself to turn the lights off and go to bed. He stands outside Ben’s door for a moment, just feels, tries to tell whether or not he’s awake, and eventually something inside him says  _ yes  _ and he apprehensively creaks the door open. He’s in his spot, his eyes a little squinty from the fatigue and his hair rumpled and unkept. But he still offers Klaus a smile and makes space for him beside him.

It becomes something of a ritual, a habit for them after that. Klaus doesn’t come in at the same time every day despite their meticulously organized schedules, opting to surprise himself with his plans in an effort to keep himself occupied, create an illusion of choice and spontaneity. Ben never looks surprised to see him, but he always beams at him when he opens the door, and it makes Klaus feel like a million dollars every single time. He can’t remember anyone else looking at him like that.

He finishes the Hobbit, and Ben tries to get him into the rest of the Lord of the Rings series, but it’s a little too long for Klaus, There’s excitement for him in the introduction of new characters, new ideas, new plots. It’s a little hard for him to stay committed to one thing for too long.

But, as months pass, Ben shows him other books, other English fiction things that he probably wouldn’t have touched if it weren’t for him, too enraptured with his own niche interests to venture outside his comfort zone. He’s thankful for it, too; the more he learns English, the more he really becomes acquainted with it, the easier it is to notice the net that runs through all language, and the gaps when two languages don’t necessarily add up. Plus, other languages allowed him to appreciate the work that went into writing a whole lot more.

In exchange, Klaus offers his company. They are both so starved of real relationships and trust that when they finally give into the bond that keeps bringing them together, it’s like they can’t separate. They were at each other’s side before, but now it’s like they’re joined at the hip.

It’s Ben who first sees things start to move around Klaus. 

It happens in these little reading sessions, when Klaus is too focused to notice if the room goes up in flames around him. At first, it’s the same phenomenon that Klaus described to Five, things getting switched around, items randomly falling off of shelves. Ben and Klaus are both a little bit spooked by it, but Klaus assures Ben that whatever ghost is pulling pranks on him probably doesn’t want anything to do with him, and they’ll leave him alone when Klaus leaves. Which they do. Weird things stop happening as soon as Klaus picks himself up to go back to his own room. 

But Ben is observant. He likes patterns, and he’s good at noticing them. The weird things don’t start to happen just whenever Klaus is around, it’s always at about the same time in their reading, after they’ve both settled and actively turning pages, enraptured in their own stories. 

Ben is torn from his book mid-sentence one day when he feels a little bit of a commotion from across the room. It’s just a pencil shifting in a cup, which is nothing noticeable except for the fact that there’s no draft near the cup, nothing that Ben thinks could excuse the sudden motion. 

If Klaus notices the movement, he doesn’t acknowledge it, just wiggles his bare toes and thumbs the page in his hands, about to turn it. 

Ben looks back to the pencil, which is once again stationary in its cup. He listens and waits, waits, waits. Nothing. The pencil, as if mocking him, stays absolutely and utterly still.

He’s about to shake his head and turn back to his book, but just as his eyes flit back to the page, he hears the rattle again and the cup is tilting, like it’s being knocked over slowly, and Ben is fully aware that there’s no way the cup should be able to be balanced on its edge like that, and it's getting to an angle where he expects the pencils to all fall when suddenly the cup moves on its horizontal axis, being dragged off of the desk and  _ staying exactly at the elevation it was at previously.  _ The air still looks like it’s fiddling with it, turning it every so often, but the cup is undeniably floating in mid air. 

Ben’s eyes are wide and unblinking. He pinches himself a little bit, looks away and back at the cup, and lo and behold, it’s still there.

“ _ Klaus,”  _ he finally gasps. His brother doesn’t acknowledge him at first, so Ben goes to shake him. “Klaus, oh my God,  _ look _ .”

Klaus shakes off the focus and at the very same time, the cup clatters to the floor, and 20 pencils scatter in every direction. They both flinch at the noise, and Ben grimaces a little afterward. Those were his favorite pencils, and he knows all of the graphite inside of them is broken, now. 

Klaus turns back to Ben with furrowed brows. “Did you see it happen this time?” He asks, rising from his position to pick up all of the pencils on the floor. “God, I’m so happy I know I’m not crazy—“

Ben stops listening to his rambling as the points begin to connect together in his brain. Before he can stop himself, he blurts out, “Klaus, I think  _ you’re moving things.  _ I don’t think you’re being haunted.”

Klaus gives a little bit of a laugh, the nervousness creeping into his tone. “Uh, Ben, I really don’t think I’m doing that. Being haunted is like, my entire thing. What, you think I have telekinesis?”

The doubt begins to creep in a little bit, but Ben resists the urge to step down. “Klaus, I saw that cup lift into the air, and as soon as I got your attention, it fell again. It was moving like the way you play with things when you’re bored, or focused.”  _ I felt it, it’s you, it felt like you. “ _ Maybe I’m reading too many comic books, I don’t know. But things only move when you’re focusing on something. It makes sense,” he says.  _ Please believe me. _

Klaus’s expression is skeptical as he finally, slowly, places the cup back on the dresser where it sat before. “Ben, I don’t know,” he protests weakly. “Me, having a secondary power? Don’t you think we would have known?”

“We didn’t know about Diego’s for a long time,” Ben argues. He goes rigid for a moment, an idea popping into his head, before he leaps up from the bed, towards his bookshelf. It only takes him a moment of searching before he pulls out what he was seeking,  _ Matilda  _ by Roald Dahl.

“Klaus, it makes sense. God, I had no idea we were so on the nose before with the Matilda Effect. Matilda starts to read and use her brain to its highest potential, and then she realizes she can move things with her mind. Maybe a similar thing is happening with you? You  _ have  _ been feeding your brain more, recently.”

Klaus actually snorts then, but grabs the book from Ben’s hands and gives it a once-over, considering the idea. “This seems silly, Ben,” He says, but still flips through the book, not entirely unconvinced. “Should we… talk to dad about it?”

Ben freezes. Their dad, who had experimented on Ben like he was an animal from a young age. Who had listened to Ben asking for help, saying  _ no, no, it hurts,  _ and had done nothing in his power to ease his discomfort or make him feel safe.

“ _ No,”  _ Ben answers, quickly. “I think we should wait for a while, see if we figure anything out on our own.”

Klaus looks at him for a second, absorbs the entirety of his scared expression before softening and agreeing. “What about Five, then? He might be more likely to agree with me now that we have a witness. He might be able to help.”

Ben thinks for a moment, but relents pretty easily and says a quick  _ okay _ . Five had a wisdom beyond any of their other siblings, and they could definitely trust him to keep it a secret from dad while they figured out what was going on. The earlier numbers were much less trustworthy regarding Reginald. 

He shoots Klaus what he hopes is a reassuring look and says, “we’re gonna figure this out, don’t worry.” 

Klaus forces a tight smile and says  _ I know  _ before announcing that he’s going to go to bed early. Ben notices that he takes  _ Matilda _ with him.

They catch Five alone two days later, during what would have been their reading time after their training. Klaus bursts into his room, as usual, and Ben follows several paces behind, clearly not entirely on board with Klaus’s blatant disregard for their brother’s personal space.

Five actually looks up from his textbook this time, looks to Klaus, then Ben, then says, “oh, well this should be interesting.”

Klaus rolls his eyes. “That’s a word for it.”

Five spins in his chair to face the two of them. “Is this about…?” he drawls, ever so efficient.

“Yes,” Klaus interrupts. “The lead that I _totally did find,_ by the way, was a dead end. But Ben actually saw it happen this time!”

A flash of something close to intrigue flashes across Five’s face, and then he turns to focus on Ben. Five’s gaze has always felt like... a lot. When he looks at something, it's almost like you can see the gears turning, the way he takes in information one item at a time at a surprising speed and accuracy. There’s a power behind his eyes, like the enigma of watching a computer whirr and knowing something too complex to understand is occurring just out of sight. It feels like you’re being taken apart under a microscope.

Ben swallows. Klaus was intimidating in his own way, where he never knew what he was going to do next and it kept him on his toes. Being around him was like being around a destructive toddler. Being around Five was like standing in front of judge, jury, and executioner.

He clears his throat and the words fall out. “Klaus was reading, and across the room, there was a cup filled with pencils on my dresser that just… started floating. Without purpose, just in the air like it was being held absentmindedly. When I told Klaus to look and broke his concentration, it dropped. I think Klaus is the one who is making things move.”

“ _ The Matilda Effect,”  _ says Klaus with a mysterious wave of his hand. “But a bit more literal.”

Five’s eyebrows furrow while he processes the information. “Interesting,” he hums. “And this is the only time you’ve seen this happen?”

Ben nods. “Yeah. I’ve  _ heard _ it happen before and been in the same room, but this is the first time I saw it in time to watch.”

“Huh,” Five says quietly, lost in thought. A moment passes before he continues. “I mean, it makes a certain amount of sense. Klaus having a second power is perfectly reasonable. Even if it doesn’t relate much to his original power, it’s logical, because Diego’s second power is completely different.”

Five takes a breath and then finally says, “Have you tried to do it purposefully?”

Klaus and Ben look at each other dumbly. Why hadn’t they thought of that?

“So that’s a no then. Do you wanna try?”

Klaus’s face scrunches up and he bashfully puts a hand on the back of his neck. “I, uh, really don’t know how successful I’d be. I don’t even know how I’m doing it,” he says.

Five just stands up, and in a way that is unnervingly gentle in contrast to his typical character, guides Klaus over to sit on his bed. “I mean, all of us started to use our powers accidentally. Gotta start somewhere. Here, get comfortable,” and Klaus sits, tucking his feet up under his knees, criss-cross. Five goes back to his chair, and he looks weirdly like a therapist with his attention so fixed on Klaus.

“So, it seems as if this power thrives in a calm and focused environment. Have you ever tried to meditate, Klaus?”

Klaus shakes his head and looks down, becoming a little smaller as he tucks his limbs closer. Ben invites himself to sit on the bed, a few feet away from Klaus, just enough to monitor him.

“That’s okay,” Five says and sits at the edge of his seat. His voice drops to something a little lower and calmer, almost  _ soothing _ . “It’s really not too difficult. Close your eyes and relax. The key is to clear your mind, focus on your breathing, and acknowledge and dismiss each thought that comes to your brain. Recognize the presence of your thoughts, but don’t find yourself trapped with them.”

Klaus nearly scowls. “Okay, easier said than done, you try living in my brain. When did you become a monk, anyways?” he teases. But his eyelids flutter closed and he takes in a deep, full breath, then exhales and Ben can see the tension beginning to drain from his muscles. 

“Good,” Five praises. “Think about how it feels to inhabit your body. Allow yourself to be present without all of the chatter in your head.”

Klaus stays still, eyes closed. The sight is a little unnerving. It seems like Klaus is always in motion, eyes looking everywhere, hands tapping, leg bouncing. He doesn’t have an off switch, and the stillness is nearly foreign. 

A few moments pass, where Ben and Five patiently observe their brother and his surroundings. Ben’s own skepticism begins to grow, but then he feels something in the air change just a little bit. It gets a little colder, and an energy makes the hairs on the back of Ben’s neck stand up. If Five notices, he doesn’t say anything, just continues to watch Klaus with an intensity straddling the line between dedication and creepiness.

Then it finally happens. A wooden box on Five’s dresser begins to move, shimmying over the edge as if a kid was trying to reach it, but wasn't quite tall enough. One corner, then the other, then the other, and before Ben knows it, Five jumps to the space just below it to catch the box just before it eventually tumbles to the floor. The noise makes Klaus jump and flutter his eyes open, rubbing at them as if he were coming out of a deep sleep. He looks at Ben, Five, and the box before doing a double take and scanning over the scene once more.

“Damn,” Klaus says simply. “Guess Benji had a point.”

Ben smiles. Yes, he did.

“The Matilda Effect,” Five repeats with contemplation. “Guess we were a little too accurate for our own good with that theory. How long has this been happening, Klaus?”

He shrugs, a blank kind of wonder on his face while he processes. “Uh, I don’t know, really. I started really noticing it a few weeks before I came to you, but in the beginning I thought it was just me getting distracted and misplacing things. So who really knows?” He goes quiet for a second before letting out a panicked, elated kind of laugh and dragging his hands down his face. “God, if I’ve been doing this for years and we’ve all just been dismissing it as my own inattention, I’m gonna be  _ pissed.” _

Ben chuckles, too, before adding, “If it only happens when you’re focused, it has to be a pretty recent thing. Usually your brain’s too busy.”

Klaus and Five both nod. They all seem to sigh out a certain amount of tension that they weren’t aware they had been holding, from the waiting and the worrying and the imminent jumpscare of something random shifting around them. And then it spikes again when Five says, “have you thought about what you’re gonna tell Dad, yet?”

The struggle is plain and clear on Klaus’s face. There’s the possibility of praise, a form of immediate gratification that Klaus is not used to receiving from their father, but a form that he craves nonetheless. But after that, there’s also the potential of fear, of the same training he’s seen all of the people he loves endure without cease. Klaus has been lucky so far. He sees the ghosts and fears them, but as long as he restrains the panic, Reginald doesn’t push him very far. There’s too many variables, and he hasn’t devised a method to tell if Klaus is in danger in the first place.

Klaus, after a moment of deliberation, solemnly shakes his head. “I think I should wait a little while and figure them out on my own, first. At least develop a basic understanding of them, and then he can help me push it further.”

A lot goes unsaid by the phrase  _ push it further. _ None of them have confided in each other about their individual training quite yet, and none of them want to be the first to cross that invisible boundary.

Five nods his head once and presses his lips together. “Well,” he starts after a moment, “Keep meditating and see what happens. It’s probably best for someone to stay with you, just in case they need to do damage control.” He sounds a bit like a doctor prescribing a treatment for their patient. “Write things down, too,” Five adds. “Might be good to keep some notes so you can look back and recognize any patterns that have an influence on your powers.”

Klaus huffs out a little breath from his nose, a form of melancholy laughter that should not look so weighted on someone his age. “God, our lives are so weird,” he says simply.

Then he’s standing again and there’s a smile plastered on his face that looks mostly fake, but with a slight glimmer of optimism revealed in his eyes. Resilient as always, he does a small bow to Five and whispers out an  _ extremely  _ sincere, “ _ Thank you, Sensei _ ,” before turning on one foot and swinging open the door. Behind it stands Luther, tall and straight as ever, with one fist raised as if to knock on the door. 

“Mom made cookies,” he says, expression blank. He looks between the three of them before ducking his head down and power-walking away with purpose.

Klaus just looks back at Ben and Five and shrugs. “You want me to bring some up for you guys?”

“Only if they’re chocolate chip,” Five replies breezily.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My tumblr is @macaronigrilleao3! feel free to send me prompts etc. next update in a week. hope you enjoyed!


	5. The Empress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Empress represents a maternal figure. She suggests a strong connection to feminine energy, which is translated in many ways: elegance, sensuality, nurturing, creativity. Feminine energy is necessary to create a balance in both men and women.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for depictions of anxiety and parental abuse

Klaus is trying to sort all of the books on his bookshelf, debating between differentiating by genre, or by author, or even alphabetically, when he is interrupted.

“Hello, Klaus,” his mother chirps, and the mirth that is ever present in her voice does nothing to prevent him from nearly jumping out of his skin, simultaneously trying and failing to contain a little yell. He hadn’t heard her come into his room, but sure enough she’s there, just a few feet away. He should really say something about Luther’s decision to put him on lookout whenever they do skirmishes.

He places a hand over his heart as if it’ll stop it pounding in his chest. She really got her good, that time. “Hello, mother,” he greets her, ever so formal. “Dinner’s not for another 30 minutes,” he says, the _what are you doing here_ going unsaid.

“Why, you’re super correct,” she smiles. Then it shifts into something a little more sympathetic, or as close as an android can come to sympathy, when she says, “your father requested that you come down early so that you two could have a discussion.” Her programming keeps her voice even, strong, and smooth despite the news she brings.

His anxiety, which had already started to diminish following his recent jumpscare, doubles. Klaus immediately begins to feel sick. It wasn’t unusual for Reginald to ask to have a discussion with them, but it also wasn’t common, and he knew from his siblings’ faces at the table afterward that these talks were never to be celebrated. He swallows, forces a deep breath into his lungs, and his exhale shudders a little bit on the way out. As if steeling himself would do anything for what he was about to experience. 

He buries the pessimism down and instead slowly stands and reaches out. Grace’s expression stays somewhat somber until she closes the gap, pulling him into a hug and letting him bury his face into her tummy. Well, more like solar plexus, now. 

Grace isn’t warm, is barely soft, and her midriff has none of the _give_ that his siblings’ bodies do when he squeezes them. Clearly, she wasn’t designed with affection in mind, apart from the sweet little touches she gives them throughout the day, but that’s more Grace than Hargreeves. All the same, he isn’t one to deny the scraps of attention and love that are offered to him. He, like all of the others, entertains the illusion sometimes.

“What are we having for dinner, afterward?” He asks, turning his face to rest his cheek against her.

“Salmon and asparagus, tonight, sweetie,” she says and pulls him in a little tighter. 

“I like asparagus,” he mumbles, and then he can feel something inside of him clawing up towards her, the same something he always felt when he was given affection, that hunger that made him want to hold on and never let go, that made the space around himself a little too vast whenever they eventually, _inevitably,_ left. 

“I know you do, Klaus.”

He presses his forehead against her and grits his teeth and savors it just a moment longer before tearing away from her. He gives her a smile, knows it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, and says “I’ll see you at dinner,” before turning and leaving.

Hargreeves is always in his study before dinner. Like them, he also lives on a schedule, the only difference being that he isn’t being forced to by a ruthless psychopath.

When Klaus steps around the corner, the door is already opened. Reginald is at his desk, not looking up from his work, as usual, but Luther is standing in front of him too. He’s standing with his hands behind his back and shoulders straight and square, but he’s staring at his shoes with his head hung low, negating any confidence that his posture would otherwise convey. 

Klaus presses his lips together and pads into the room on bare feet, as usual. For a moment, Reginald does not acknowledge him, but Luther glances up and Klaus doesn’t have to be his brother to recognize the guilt in his eyes, poorly masked by his usual heroic stoicism. _Uh oh._

Time passes. Klaus clears his throat, once, but their father doesn’t acknowledge him whatsoever. He just continues to write in his notebook, making no effort to hurry his actions. Klaus and Luther just wait silently, at his mercy.

“Number Four,” Reginald finally begins after what Klaus estimates is about five full minutes of tense silence. It’s such a classic interrogation technique, making them wait, but Klaus feels small when he turns to look at him. He doesn’t know how it can be this effective. 

He wastes absolutely no time when he begins. “I have heard that you have discovered a new ability, one that you have utterly failed to report to me. Care to explain yourself?”

Klaus’s heart hammers in his chest. His brain flatlines for a second, and all he can notice is the sweat beginning to gather on his palms. _I didn’t want him to find out. Ben and Five didn’t want him to find out, and now I’m going to discover why. How did he find out._

Out of the corner of his eye, Luther shifts again. Everything starts to click pretty quickly. Apparently, Luther was standing right next to Five’s door a lot longer than Klaus had initially thought.

“Luther, you are the _worst,”_ he seethes. “ _Eavesdropping, really?_ Don’t you have anything better to do?”

They both know the answer to that question. He doesn’t respond, only stiffens minutely. 

“ _Number Four,”_ Hargreeves scolds, this time with an edge on his tone that makes him immediately obey, even though he doesn’t want to. His throat locks up a little and the fear rises up in him again. “Explain yourself. Now.”

He tries to think of a way out. Tries to imagine what he could say to brush the both of them off, distract them. _Something, anything._ But he takes one more look at Hargreeves and all of the courage he’d recently mustered falls out of him, drips onto the floor and pools around him hopelessly. He lets out a sigh.

“During my studies,” he begins, omitting anything that could point him towards Ben or Five, “I started to notice that things would shift around me. What _Number One_ overheard,” he growls, shooting his brother a sideways glare, “was me finally putting the pieces together. I replicated the environment, and all evidence points towards me having discovered a new ability. I wanted to be sure of what it was before I approached you, I know how valuable your time is,” he adds at the end, hoping for some brownie points or whatever would make his father _not_ beat the shit out of him.

His father mulls it over for a moment. “How would you describe the nature of this new power?”

“Telekinesis,” he replies. “It thrives in a... calm and focused environment,” he says, repeating what Five had said prior. 

“Interesting,” Reginald says, and he can hear a darkness lacing through his tone. “It looks like you might be of more use to myself and your team than previously thought, Number Four.”

Klaus swallows around the lump in his throat. He doesn’t like how that sounds at all, but his father sits back in his seat, so at least he knows that he isn’t going to hit him. At least, not right now.

“I deem it necessary to increase the intensity of your preexisting fitness regimen,” he says, and Klaus’s heart _sinks_. “And in addition, you will start your own personal, specialized training next week.”

Klaus sputters. There, after all, was a _reason_ that Klaus hadn’t been on as strict of a schedule as his siblings. “Have… have you figured out a way--”

“Do _not_ interrupt me when I am speaking, Number Four!” Reginald barks. Klaus’s jaw clamps shut. “I thought you would have learned by now that you are not to provide commentary or ask questions unless specifically given permission to do so. All will be explained in due time. Now, it’s time to eat dinner. This matter will have to wait. I will see you for your first session Sunday morning.” He stands, closes an open notebook in front of him, and without another word, marches out of the office, leaving Luther and Klaus to follow him.

Luther moves immediately, following his father without a second thought. He’s about to leave the room when he looks back at Klaus, just for a moment. They lock eyes. There’s still traces of the guilt on Luther’s face, he knows it’s still there, but it’s overwhelmed with something Klaus can only label as disappointment, frustration. 

“You know,” he begins, and his tone is strong and noble. “If you didn’t give dad such a hard time, he’d be much better to you. Just follow the rules.” 

Klaus just sighs. “Maybe,” he says, but he knows it’s empty. Luther does too, judging by the way he shakes his head as he leaves him.

It’s not that Klaus doesn’t want to pretend. He wants to believe that they’re mostly normal, pretend that acquiescing to their father’s gruelling demands would solve all of their problems. But he doesn’t have that sort of luxury. He can smell the death on that man. His evil follows him wherever he goes, in the form of ghosts that wail and whine, that describe and relive their untimely deaths in a detail that makes him shudder.

When he arrives to the dinner table, everyone is waiting for him already, but no one comments on his arrival. He just slinks up to his chair and sits. His limbs feel heavy and his brain is foggy from all of the emotion and cortisol.

Ben shoots him a glance from next to him, and he can see Five is also eyeing him worriedly. He just gives them a meek nod, an answer to the question they were both clearly asking, and eats his dinner. Grace has given him more asparagus than the other kids.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so the foreshadowing was a little obvious. my bad lol  
> ok everyone demonizes luther and im Not here for it. yes, he is an extremely flawed character. yes he has fucked up beyond belief in the show. but, he also had a vastly different childhood than his other siblings (dad’s favorite spot under the tree) and also attachment to an abuser is a very real and valid way to respond to trauma. he’s a classic golden child under a narcissistic parent! it’s quite normal. sending tom hopper death threats is not how we’re gonna respond to a fictional character’s shitty decisions. capiche? 
> 
> therefore, i tried to show that he is a dumbass but he is not an idiot, and he’s not in any way malicious. hope that came through. 
> 
> also notice we have 12 chapters now!! hehe ~i know how it ends~
> 
> next update hopefully soon, certainly within a week :) follow the tumblr @macaronigrilleao3 to hear more stuff about the planning, post schedule, etc.


	6. The Emperor (Reversed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Emperor reversed calls upon you to reassess your relationship with power, authority, responsibility, and discipline. This card can suggest an overuse or abuse of power around you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for parental/child abuse and excusing of abuse by an unreliable narrator.

Sunday morning, Klaus is out of bed ten minutes before when Diego would usually come to wake him up. He’s brushing his teeth, getting dressed, and trying at least a little bit to tame the curly mess that is his hair. 

Ben and Five had the same advice when he told them about what had transpired during his meeting with their father: behave. Try to pay attention, never talk back, and do what he says. They both stressed that he musn’t show up late, because it would set him off into a mood that would affect how he treated you during the session. It was enough talking to make Klaus connect the dots and understand the risk of misbehaving.

He doesn’t _really_ understand it, though, not until he’s been through it himself.

Sunday morning, he meets their father in his and Allison’s shared training space (or, the space suitable for the children whose superpowers were not eminently destructive and dangerous). He creeps around the corner first, poking his head through, as if reconnaissance would do anything to dull the sharp fear he feels in his stomach. 

Hargreeves is there before he is. He has that stupid red, leather book in his hands. Klaus hates that thing. He’s not sure if he wants to read it or burn it. He’s in the center of the empty training space, and next to him are two chairs that are facing each other. The room is mostly bare except for some stray things near the corners— is that a robotic teddy bear?

Klaus wants to take a moment and gather himself, prepare himself for what he’s about to experience, but there isn’t a clock anywhere in view and he’s not supposed to be late. Before his conscience can stop him, he’s walking into the room, dress shoes making noises against the concrete that reverberate across the walls. _How is that intimidating?_ He feels small.

“Number Four,” Reginald says in lieu of a greeting when Klaus has almost reached him. 

“Good morning, sir,” Klaus replies. He has to force the snark out of his tone. 

He stands up tall, tries not to let his eyes wander too much (these rooms contain dead things, sometimes small animals), pinches himself every time he starts to notice his brain lose focus (every time his father starts to speak). 

‘I’m pleased to see that you have taken it upon yourself to arrive early for your first training session in years,” Reg says, and _damn,_ maybe Ben and Five had a point about preventing as many infractions as possible. But then he continues, “I do hope that you will not disappoint me in the future.” 

“I won’t, sir.” It feels empty. He wants to be used to it by now. He’s had almost 11 years to adjust to the praise and the rejection, the cycles of ambivalence and hate, but their father still has as much power over him now as when they were toddlers. It feels almost violating. 

“Now, sit,” Hargreeves orders, and it would be polite if it weren’t so damn scary. “We have many topics to discuss.”

The first day is mostly questions. He hasn’t trained in a while, because as much as Reggie didn’t want to admit it, he had no idea how to interact with the spirit world enough to gain a objective perspective and train Klaus. Before, Klaus would get frustrated about having to describe everything that was occurring around him, and Reginald was unable to confirm or deny that the ghosts inches from his face had the capacity to injure or hurt him. 

(And apparently Klaus couldn’t be trusted to tell him whether or not he was in danger. Hargreeves preferred to halt most of his training with Klaus rather than take his word as the truth, be forced to recognize that he was putting ~~his~~ a child in harm’s way.)

He bombards him with questions, some expected, _how have your previous abilities interacted with your new ones_ , some less obvious, like _have you noticed a considerable change in your appetite lately._ The unpredictability is disconcerting.

Klaus doesn’t like to speak about his powers, because he knows they’re weird and macabre and they’re not for everyone. He also doesn’t like talking to his father, _period_ . But something makes the process of telling Reginald all of the developments in the spirit world seem like… confessional. It’s an intimidating environment, and he’s saying words that he’s never said aloud to anyone before: _a new ghost arrived a few months ago that still hasn’t spoken, the basement’s been especially loud lately._ The rambling is therapeutic, almost.

Except he’s looking at Hargreeves and he can see the ideas swirling behind the monocle. Every once and a while his mouth will turn up in a sadistic smirk and Klaus knows he’s going to hurt him with the secrets that are just pouring out. 

The questions are easy for the most part. He’s under the impression that he’s going to leave the training session mostly unscathed, but then, near the end of the time slot, Reginald says, “So, you’ve previously reported to me that your recent power thrives in a serene environment.”

Klaus nods. The hour and a half or so of consistent focusing has worn him out, he knows he’s only got so much left in him, but the session will end soon.

“I’d like you to demonstrate it for me, here,” he orders.

Anxiety spikes in Klaus’s stomach, for a reason he can’t place. It’s been so long since something was expected of him, all he can think of is how he’ll disappoint. “I’ll try sir,” he nods.

He lets his eyes shut and tries to breathe like Five taught him. Slow breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth. But he can hardly refer to the room as a _serene environment_. He feels Reginald staring at him, and it’s like he’s choking in between breaths and his heart is starting to race as the minutes tick by and nothing is happening, no movement around him. He’s still painfully aware of his surroundings, not lost in his own calm like he had been with Ben.

He searches for the flow he feels, tries to tug on the feeling in his gut when it happens, but, there’s nothing. Nothing at all. He’s still thinking things like _oh god you’re running out of time_ and _you’ll never be able to do it in front of him_ it’s not helping his situation.

“Four, report,” Reginald barks after a moment, and he can hear the annoyance in his tone. 

Klaus shakes his head, redoubling his effort for a few more seconds before giving up and opening his eyes. It’s bright in the training room, and he feels very _present_ in a way that almost makes him uncomfortable. “I think…” he begins, before electing to change his phrasing. “I don’t believe that I’ve managed to hone this power to a voluntary expression, yet, sir.”

For a moment, Reginald just stares at him. His eyes are dark and cold. Klaus watches his hands with rapt attention and tries to keep himself in check.

“What part of the word _training_ has been misunderstood by you,” Hargreeves says, and he sounds _disgusted_ , disgusted by _him._ Something in Klaus’s throat catches dangerously and it almost hurts, how the tears welling up feel like tiny tingles. 

“N-none, sir,” he chokes back, but he knows it isn’t convincing. The anxiety flips in his gut and he might be trembling by now. 

Hargreeves scoffs at him. “Then, you’ll understand that training is meant to build upon unmastered skills. You are to continue to attempt to demonstrate your skill until you yield results, Number Four.”

_He can’t do this, he can’t do it. He’s going to be here for hours and there’s no point to it all because he’s as good as useless. This is supposed to be what redeems you, your proof that you aren’t an idiot, and you’re blowing it._

Klaus feels a dam in his throat break, and a noise is released that could be anything from a whine to a sob. He barely knows what’s got him so upset, but it feels cold and piercing, and way too much to handle. He sniffles, and feels a fat tear fall on its own volition, too heavy to streak against his face and instead soaking his shirt collar. “I— I c-... I can’t—“ he manages—

He knows what’s coming before he even feels it, just from instinct, something still etched in his memory despite the duration he’d spent excused from training. Hargreeves’ hand _slaps_ against his cheek, and the sound it makes reverberates throughout the room afterward. Klaus yelps against the stinging. His hand almost reaches up to soothe his skin, but he decides against it last minute, keeping his hand fisted at his side. 

“ _Get a grip, Number Four,”_ his father hisses, and he chokes back another sob. “ _Crying_ will get you nowhere, especially on a mission. You need to exterminate yourself of this _childish fear.”_

Klaus nods fervently, the rest of the tears spilling down, now. “Yes, sir. You’re— You’re right. I’m sorry sir,” he says, the apology spilling out as fast as it could.

Reginald looks him up and down, taking in the entirety of Klaus’s crumpled stature. Oh, Klaus didn’t miss that, the feeling of being assessed, judged, valued objectively and empirically. But it’s still familiar. Degrading, but it’s something he can grab onto that brings him less shame than the crying.

“You are excused. I’d suggest you go collect yourself,” Reg says simply, his words swimming in unfiltered malice. Klaus nods, spits out a thank you, and walks from the room in a hurry. 

He lingers a while in the training hallway, tucked into a room he knows will not be used, exhausted from the cortisol that had been pumping through his body all morning. He hasn’t looked at himself in the mirror, but he still feels a stinging type of bite on his cheek and wouldn’t be surprised if there were a mark.

Not that it particularly matters. All of his siblings know that Reginald hits Klaus. It’s not a scandal because he deserves it. None of the other siblings have his attention problems, his hyperactivity, his sensitivities. Nothing he has done, nothing he has studied, not even the reading, has fully dispersed those urges (to speak, to cry, to shift restlessly in his seat). He’s not quite sure what even causes them, but if his siblings aren’t giving into them, surely he’s the one in the wrong. So he gets hit, and honestly, he understands why.

It takes him more time than usual to make his way into the kitchen, opting to savor the walk there and spend time in his thoughts before he inevitably forgets them. He usually chitchats with Grace and while he is pretty good at multitasking, he can’t be trusted to hold his thoughts, intangible and stringy as they are.

Today, because he was training, he missed breakfast with his family. The kitchen’s mostly empty when he shuffles in, apart from Grace. He considers taking comfort in her again and asking for a hug, but she’s cooking and he doesn’t want to get in the way.

Oatmeal today. That’s what she’s making when she stirs things in a pot in the morning. It reminds him of Vanya, but he can’t really place where the association comes from.

He blinks and then food is being placed in front of him by Grace, her smiles and her perfect appearance. Klaus thinks about how lovely it would feel to be as pretty as her. Would red look good on him, too?

He blinks again and the bowl’s empty, but he doesn’t really remember eating it. He says thank you anyways, tells her it was great. Oatmeal’s never been his favorite but Grace sometimes puts nice things like berries in his.

And then, just like that, he’s in the hallway, walking towards his room, one foot being placed in front of the other only he doesn’t feel them hit the floor. In fact, e doesn;t much notice he;s walking at all. And then Ben is running up to him and it startles him a little bit more than usual.

“Klaus! Hey, how’d it go?” Ben asks, and he’s doing a poor job at concealing his worry. His eyes keep darting back to his cheek, which feels hot and at this point he’s fully aware that there might as well be a handprint on his face. He wonders if Ben can see the lines of Hargreeves’ fingers. Does he wear rings?

Klaus just shrugs dejectedly. He wasn’t expecting it to go any better than it had today. He feels like if he were someone different, he wouldn’t have messed up today. Diego or Luther totally would have been able to do what their father wanted. Why could he never match up? Why was he doomed to be the soft one?

Instead of saying that, he just goes, “It could have been worse,” because it _could_ have. “I’m really tired,” he follows up, and plays with his fingers to break the eye contact.

Ben sighs, and reaches up to Klaus’s face to turn his cheek. He likes how slowly he does it, so as to not frighten him. He tenses a little anyways, but that’s just because he’s _him._

“That looks like it hurts,” Ben says. Which means, _really, are you okay?_

“It’s not too bad, it just stings a little.” _I’ve had worse._

“You might even want to put some ice on it.” _Is there anything I can do to help you? I will._

“Eh, I doubt it’ll bruise.” _You don’t have to._

Ben nods. He looks uncomfortable with Klaus’s rejection of his care, but not upset with him. He gets a little bashful suddenly, look at the floor for a moment, before asking, “Do you want to read? You can even take a nap if you feel especially tired, I’ll be there.”

Something in Klaus’s chest swells. “Yeah,” he says dumbly. But Ben beams back at him and it forces a little bit of a smile from him, he can feel the warmth coming back in through his chest.

They go upstairs, together. They wordlessly tuck into Klaus’s room, because it’s closer. Klaus takes off the jacket and loosens the tie and hops on the bed to _tear_ the shoes and socks off. He’s never liked having his feet covered. It feels restraining and gross. He makes a show of flinging them across the room to make Ben laugh.

And then it’s just the two of them again. The last of the tension drips from his body and he feels like a melting ice cream cone in his bed, next to his best friend. The dichotomy is a little shocking, but it’s refreshing nonetheless, certainly welcome after the morning he’s had. The difference makes the good so much better. 

He doesn’t sleep, but he places the book over his face and closes his eyes. Just rests. He takes a big breath and he can feel it in the bottom of his lungs, now, unlike during training. It doesn’t shudder on the exhale, he just feels calm. His window’s open and it’s nearing fall, the crisp air makes him feel clean. He doesn’t know if this is what rebirth is, but this is what he wants it to be.

A beat of stillness passes, where the comfortable silence between them is the sweetest thing Klaus has ever heard. He is so thankful for Ben, that he doesn’t prod, that he is still so patient with Klaus’s even when everyone else isn’t. The reading, proving his own intelligence, has made him a little bit more self-confident, but sometimes Ben is the only thing that convinces him his presence isn’t a burden.

He’s lost in his thoughts when he hears Ben say a soft, “ _hey,”_ and when he picks the book off from his face Ben’s own book is being tugged away from him by an invisible force. This is the first time he’s really watching the levitation happen, the first time it hasn’t stopped now that Klaus is watching. It’s _odd._ He still hasn’t gotten used to the fact that _he’s_ doing that. 

“Oh,” Klaus says, a little bit more calm than to be expected. He feels it in his stomach, he’s sure, but there’s a feeling that’s going all the way through him, from his head to his toes. He feels a circulation of something, a balance that exists within all parts of him now that is not usually there. He leans into it on one side.

The book moves again, this time overcompensating and swinging towards Ben in a slow but momentous push. He catches it in his hands again and turns his wide eyes towards Klaus. 

“Oh,” Ben echoes back. He also sounds calm, but there’s an excitement within his tone. 

Klaus wiggles the balance inside of him again. The book begins to turn, and Ben lets go of it to watch it turn back and forth and do somersaults in the air. It’s unpredictable and Klaus _sure as hell_ doesn’t quite have a grip on it, but he is learning how it feels. It feels… weird. 

Then he reaches his palms out beneath it, lets out an exhale and _releases,_ and the book comes down into his open hands. It was heavier than it felt in the air. Klaus doesn’t know _how_ that makes sense to him, but it does.

“Huh.” Klaus lets out a fluttery kind of nervous laugh and hands the book back to Ben so he can put his head in his hands. “Huh. This shit is so weird, Benny.”

Ben just chuckles and shakes his head. “I’d say I can’t imagine, but…” he gestures aimlessly around his stomach. “Eldritch horrors and all. God, what do you think other kids worry about?” 

“I have no idea,” Klaus grins, but it falters a little bit after a moment. “Why couldn’t that have just worked this morning?”

Ben’s smile freezes and it’s replaced instead by a horrible sort of knowing. 

That night, he has a nightmare. It feels familiar, but he isn’t sure he recognizes anything from it. 

He’s in a dark space, he can barely see his body in front of him. But things scuttle and creak around him, water drips echo off of walls that sound too close for his own comfort. His spine hurts from sitting on stone, but he can barely move. His body won’t cooperate with his brain’s wishes and he feels claustrophobic. 

Voices whisper to him. He feels breath on his neck, in the shell of his ear. Nothing touches him, but these _things_ are so close he isn’t sure where he ends and they begin. He’s cold, he’s so cold, and his fingers have gone numb. He tries to scream but his voice dies in his throat.

No one hears his scream when he wakes, or the ones that follow after he wakes. After all, he’s had his room sound-proofed since he was eight. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one was sad my dudes. so sorry. comic ppl know where it’s goin tho lol
> 
> i wanna get as much of this story out before s2 as possible but i have family in town rn so we’ll see what happens :) update as usual within a week max. i’ve got some really cool shit planned so stay tuned ;)
> 
> tumblr: macaronigrilleao3


	7. The Lovers

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Lovers represent relationships and choices. It can also depict someone becoming more clear about their values and beliefs, both of which are necessary components of the decision-making process. Finally, the card can also encourage you to unify dual powers, bringing two seemingly opposite forces together to make something new and harmonious.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is late. I'm sorry.  
> cw for unreliable narration and emetophobia but it's mad brief

It seems as if the only part of his powers that Klaus can predict is their complete and utter refusal to cooperate. It’s so constant that if it weren’t _him_ that had to deal with it, he’d think it was funny. However, he _was_ the one who had to deal with it, so it was unbelievably frustrating.

The rest of the week, the telekinesis continues, arguably becoming more active as the week progresses. He’s with Ben a lot now, more than usual. Ben’s pointing him toward the classics, and his excitement is finally pushing through his chronic shyness. He’s showing up at Klaus’s door now, armed with two copies of Camus’ _The Stranger_ , written in both English and French, practically bursting with energy. They read together and he’s peeking over Klaus’s shoulder and asking him, _how did he write that originally?_ And Klaus can watch the sparkle of fascination in Ben’s eye when he tells him. So this is what being valued feels like.

Being sought after is… nice, Klaus realizes. It’s something he didn’t understand he was lacking. It eases so much of his social anxieties, calms the voice in his head that tells him he’s too much, or he’s being listened to out of courtesy rather than genuine interest. 

They spend time together more days than not. Ben sometimes has to poke him to bring his attention to something he’s carrying in the air _multiple times an hour_. Sometimes the objects drop and shatter (he’s breaking all kinds of things, these days), but other times they remain levitating, and Klaus has another opportunity to test the waters and lean into his power. 

Using telekinesis doesn’t feel like using his other powers. Hearing and seeing the dead come more naturally to him, sure, but he seldom receives any type of gratification from it. The ghosts are scary, communicating with them around his siblings tended to make them uncomfortable, and there was hardly any effort or skill that went into it. He’s understood for a long time that he is merely a conduit for a greater presence and plane. He has no control over the dead, he is merely the gatekeeper meant to watch over them. It’s a lousy job, one that he would never have picked for himself.

Telekinesis, on the other hand, is very different. When he uses it, he feels a _rightness,_ a balance that he is altogether unused to. He feels present. There's a distinctive energy flow he’s come to associate with his powers, and it is entirely, wholly welcome. He can imagine himself using his power simply for the way he interacts with it, and god, he’s never felt that way before, not once in his life.

Of course, it is frustrating sometimes. But it’s a challenge his ambition is more than willing to tackle, very similar to the confusion he felt when he began to learn German. It's a puzzle made entirely for himself, and for once, he has a choice. He _wants to learn._

Despite the progress he’d made so far, when the next Sunday arrives and he wakes for special training once more, he is met with little to no success. He tries and tries, perseveres, even, but there’s no change.

He’s lucky to avoid Reginald’s… _harsher_ treatment because this time he manages to keep his emotions internal. He refuses to cry, avoids looking at the burgeoning disappointment he can see in his eyes. But it doesn’t mean he’s much less affected. 

He’s not sure what it is. When he’s with Ben, levitation is a sixth sense. He can put together where he starts and ends and knows the familiar circulation of energy looping through him, the balance he feels in his extremities. With Reginald, there’s nothing there. Nothing to tug, nothing to even center himself with.

He leaves the session tired and deflated. He had gotten his hopes up, fully expecting to show his father the practice he’d gotten in throughout the rest of the week. There’s the familiar tumble of self-deprecating thoughts in his brain, but mostly he feels confused. Was it his nerves? Some of his sibling’s powers worked better when they were under pressure, was he the opposite? Doomed to only use his ability when surrounded in a calm he only knew how to experience when he was around Ben?

When he meets Grace in the kitchen after the second week, he doesn’t expect someone else to be there, watching his mother cook a reprise of the breakfast he’d already had without Klaus. He thought that he was Ben at first, but Ben didn’t make a habit of staying in the kitchen with their mom because he always felt like he was getting in his way. Plus, Diego’s posture is unmistakable, his back straight and feet perfectly shoulder-width apart at all times.

“Hiya,” Klaus mumbles on the way in. He offers a smile to them both, but slinks into his chair, fantasizing about the nap he might be able to squeeze in before his studies.

When Diego turns to greet him, he’s wearing an expression that Klaus has labeled The Eyes. It’s a warm look he takes on when he’s tapping into his more emotional side. His eyebrows pinch up, and his brown eyes look huge and sad and puppyish and a little bit too intense, sometimes, for Klaus. He doesn’t know how he manages to put so much care into one look. 

Klaus gets The Eyes more than most of their other siblings, save maybe Vanya. He knows that Diego thinks of him as his little brother and feels a certain drive to protect him. He doesn’t mind it too much. Diego is sturdy against the ghosts, who slip and slide all around him, impossible to avoid.

“Hey,” Diego says, and pulls out the chair opposite Klaus with hands that are always _surprisingly_ gentle, no matter how well he knows Diego. “I didn’t see you this morning, I’m surprised you managed to drag yourself out of bed without me,” he teases as he sits down.

Klaus actually manages a little chuckle at that. “Yeah, well, desperate times,” he says, and before he realizes that was _barely_ a deflection, Grace is placing a plate in front of him. Eggs and bacon. He immediately, habitually, almost compulsively, stabs the yolk. He’s not even sure why he always does that, but denying himself such a harmless impulse seems unnecessary. When he looks up, Diego is handing him a peach from the fruit basket on the counter, sparing him from having to get up to grab it. 

He thanks him. Diego brushes it off. Klaus cuts a piece of his egg with the side of his fork, opting to avoid using the knife placed next to him out of the illusion of convenience. And stubbornness. 

“I, uh…” Diego starts, “I heard just now that you’re starting special training again, with Dad. Mom mentioned it.” He’s wiggling in his seat a little bit from the effort of remaining casual. Diego was never the best at having emotional conversations. 

Klaus nods wordlessly, shoveling more egg into his mouth. 

“How long has it been? I feel like you’ve been out forever,” Diego says.

He chews, looking up at the ceiling in thought, and then finally swallows. “Well, Dad stopped my individual training years ago. But the incident at the training facility happened in January, so I’ve been out of group stuff too for just under a year now. Almost ten months of only the workouts.”

Klaus doesn't have very many memories from his training when he was little. In fact, all of his older memories feel a little jumbled and nonsensical, and thinking about them makes him a little uncomfortable. He’s been told that he used to be vehemently opposed to training, and he’s got some memories of that, because he recalls that Hargreeves used to punish him for trying to avoid training. He also knows that’s why he’s always been seen by his siblings as the flighty, immature one.

Diego does a low kind of whistle, the type that says _wow_. “Man, I can’t imagine going all this time without training.” 

He smirks, not without humor but overpowered with something a little more sharp. “Yeah, it was a pretty sweet gig.”

Then The Eyes are back, _too kind too caring_ and it makes Klaus lock up a little bit. What a pair, the two of them are. Sensitive to the point of detriment without a damn clue of how to express or receive emotion. 

“How’s it going, so far?” Diego asks him. It’s tentative and a little shy; he knows he’s pushing the usual boundaries of the communication between all of them as siblings. It’s a little shocking, at first, that he’s willing to erase the predetermined law for _him._

His mind darts back and forth between the possibilities. Like when he was talking to Reginald, there’s an urge to just open his mouth and never stop talking, spill all of his secrets, tell him all of the things that he never has before but are itching to get out. He wonders if they’d think of him differently. Maybe if he talks, they’ll decide he deserves their sympathy. 

Klaus isn’t sure if he even deserves sympathy in the first place. He’s got it easy. For all he knows they’ll start talking and his siblings will reveal struggles he never could have dreamed of. So what if he gets a slap every now and then, at least he’s not throwing up from exertion like Five does. 

“Honestly, it’s exactly what I was expecting from him,” he finally replies, and it’s not a lie, but it’s not the entire truth. “You know how Dad is, when I’m with him I’m always thinking of the better things I could be doing with my time. Ranging all the way from going to the carnival to fist fighting a porcupine.”

Diego chuckles a little and nods in response, eyes drifting down to look at the hands in his lap. Klaus has lost his appetite, but he knows that Grace and Diego probably won’t let him leave until he finishes his plate, so he takes another bite. 

“Is he…” Diego starts, voice lower in his throat than usual, and Klaus is honestly surprised that he is continuing to work past the deflections. Usually they even level Allison. “Is he being… super strict with you? How he always is?”

He can’t dodge the question, because that just means _yes._ He also can’t say _no_ and not elaborate, because Diego’s already expecting a _yes_ and he has to _prove_ to him that he’s _not_ being strict. And it’s ridiculously hard to get past The Eyes, because they make Klaus _want_ to feel held. 

Klaus suppresses a shiver. He looks around a little bit, checking for eavesdroppers, before he leans in closer to Diego and drops his voice minutely. He’s swapping a larger vulnerability for a smaller vulnerability and he’d rather not have anyone else hear, please. 

“Do you ever feel like,” he swallows. “Like as soon as you’re around him, you’re the worst version of yourself you can be? I don’t know what it is, but I feel so small. I can’t even use my new powers in the same room as him, which makes him more disappointed, and it’s a vicious-ass cycle.” He doesn’t know how to detach himself from the words yet, and he hates how his voice threatens to break and tears pinprick his eyes. He doesn’t think anyone in the entire world has ever cried as often as he does. 

Diego does feel like that. It’s written all over his face, set with a sad kind of cold comprehension as he watches Klaus with rapt attention. Their father is such a _dick._ They day Klaus turns 18 he is going to move out and throw the biggest fucking party.

“I’m sorry that you feel like that, Klaus,” he says. He’s making such intense eye contact that Klaus has to look away, but the sincerity of his words are not lost. The air around them has an energy that he’s not sure that Diego can feel, but is clear and open and _safe_. 

Because at the end of the day, him and Diego have never been all that different. They (and Ben) are the sensitive ones. They all fear vastly different things, but none of it is in any of their control and they are trapped with their own thoughts and the knowledge that they could be better, but they don’t know how. Klaus has always been able to see their connection, but he feels _viscerally_ understood now, like Diego’s staring into him and watching the gears move and unpacking the blueprint. It’s weird to have that feeling with someone who isn’t Ben. 

“It’s okay, I guess,” Klaus says, even though he knows it isn’t. “It’s mostly my stupid powers’ fault. They’ve been working a lot this week, but whenever I’m in training, it’s like I don’t have access. It’s frustrating because I _know_ I can be doing better but I’m not sure what the issue is.”

Diego nods his head. “I know what you mean, it really sucks. I used to have a very similar p-problem, actually.”

Klaus’s posture straightens, his interest piqued. “Really? How did you fix it?”

“I just, I just, reasoned it out to myself, I guess,” Diego says, shrugging sheepishly. “I told myself that the only difference between when I’m in t-training and when I’m not is the fact that Dad’s there. You get better at b-bl-... blocking him out over time.”

He narrows his eyes a little bit. Theoretically, that makes sense, he remembers needing to learn how to block Hargreeves out when he was training at a younger age. He doesn’t know that it’s a skill he’s ever forgotten.

“I see what you mean, but,” Klaus protests weakly, tumbling through the wording as he tries to describe what he’s experiencing. “I don’t even know if that’s why they’re not working. It feels totally different when I use my powers alone. There’s this rightness that I feel when I use them other times that I never have when I’m with Dad.”

Diego’s elbows come up to rest on the table while he thinks. “Well, okay, what are the other big differences between when you’re alone and when you’re with Dad? How does it happen normally?”

“I’m always just hanging out in my room!” Klaus whines, exasperated. “Hold on,” and he’s shoveling the last few bites of egg into his mouth and taking the bacon right off of his plate. It makes Diego laugh and shake his head. He brings his plate to grace, says a quick “ _aank ghyou,”_ with his mouth full and then he’s gesturing for Diego to follow him through the doorway and up the stairs. 

He chews, swallows, keeps a speedy pace and finds his thoughts are finally moving back at their regular speed of a-little-too-fast. “Usually, it happens when I’m focusing on something. When it first started, it was acting up when I was reading and I didn’t even know I was doing it.” 

“That’s some comic book shit,” Diego jokes. Klaus rolls his eyes, but grins. “That’s pretty close to what Ben said.” 

They round the corner and go up the second flight of stairs, and then Klaus is pushing the door to his room open. He notices Diego do a little look-around, spending time examining his full bookshelves and the other books that are stacked adjacent to them, where they won’t fit.

Then the focus is back on him. “Okay, we’re in your room. What’s different still? You might wanna reenact how it happens so you can really get all of the variables taken into account, no matter how small,” Diego suggests.

Klaus nods and wiggles his hands a little by his sides as an outlet for his energy, as if he could shake the nerves off of his fingers like little water droplets. He looks around a little bit, and that seems to ground himself more. He usually feels like coming into his room is a naturally calming experience, but he still feels weird and removed from the energy of the room. He can’t quite relax.

“Well, usually Ben is also here, but I know that isn’t what I’m missing.” Come to think of it now, there’s not that much that is different at all. He’s never really interacting with his environment in any significant way when his powers are being used. He sits down on his bed, allowing himself to bounce on the springs for a moment before moving to scoot back to where he usually sits, kind of wedged next to the wall.

But he doesn’t. His dress shoes are still on, and anyone who isn’t a psychopath can’t get in bed with shoes on, it might be the most uncomfortable thing in the world, even if their shoes might be pretty clean from never leaving the house.

He folds himself to untie them, but he only gets to loosening the laces before he absolutely _freezes_ in his tracks. The feeling is coming back, now, minutely: the balance, the circulation. 

“What’s going on,” Diego asks, his brows pinching together in concern.

“Oh my god,” Klaus responds, and he can’t tell if he’s about to laugh or shout. He holds the shoe in his hand and tugs it off and he can feel the tension pouring out of him though the single extremity. It’s still off balance, but it is significantly better than before. He wiggles his toes a little bit and he feels like he can finally take a full breath in and out. What the hell?

“Oh, my god, oh my god,” he repeats and his fingers are scrambling to get the next one off. He pops it off and tosses it on the floor and it's almost there, but not quite, and then he whips his socks off, and it hits him like a truck. There it is, the balance. 

“Klaus. What is it?” Diego’s come closer to him now to inspect whatever it is that’s got him so worked up, and his hands are hovering in the air with panicked energy and no outlet.

He laughs. It starts bubbling up in his throat and he knows it must sound manic and a little bit unhinged. “That’s so fucking stupid, oh my god,” he’s managing between gasps. “I have to have my shoes off. That’s why it hasn’t been working. I always have my shoes off when I’m reading.

Diego stops cold, staring at him with what can only be described as incredulous doubt. “What? _That’s the issue?_ How can you tell?”

Klaus covers his face with his hands and shakes his head. “I just know. I can feel it.”

For good effect, he focuses on the book he knows is on his nightstand, centers himself, and _tugs_. Diego gasps and Klaus doesn’t have to look up to understand that it’s levitating, he can feel exactly where it is. 

“Oh my god, that is so freaky,” Diego whispers. 

“Yeah, it’s super weird,” Klaus agrees. “ _C’est la vie_ ,” he announces, making a wide gesture with an open palm. The book, relatively short for what he’s used to reading, falls back onto the nightstand with little more than a small thud. 

“Man, your powers are _the best_ ,” Diego whines, and Klaus freezes. “You get to avoid training all the time and now you can move stuff with your mind! Mine are so lame.” 

There are two ghosts in the small room with them right now. Klaus hasn’t looked at them _one single time_ because he has memorized what their clothes look like so he can shut his eyes as soon as they’re in his periphery. The blood stains their clothes down to their shoes.

Klaus doesn’t know how to correct him without making him uncomfortable. It’s a battle he’s been trying to fight for years without much success. How to convince the people around him not to minimize the downsides of his powers without explaining all of the things he sees every day.

“I’m really tired,” he blurts out suddenly. “I should really take a nap. Recharge the batteries,” he says, and winks, and pulls an expression that Diego is kind enough to pity, He’s had a long day already, dammit. 

He takes mercy on him. His shoulders tense up again, resuming his natural flawless posture. He nods, and smiles, and looks up and takes in the expression on Klaus’s face. 

“If y-you ever need help with another... weird p-power thing, don’t hesitate to let me know, little bro,” he says, and it warms Klaus’s heart. 

He stands up, pats Klaus on the back, and gives him one last look. Then he’s walking out. God, he can’t wait to relay this all to Ben later. He already wasn’t taken seriously because of his powers, this really is not going to help his situation. And it’s dangerous to walk barefoot! He was struggling to find a single positive effect from this newest development.

He prefers to be barefoot, but now that he’s being forced on him by the universe, he feels robbed of the choice. He’s going to end up with a whole bunch of problems with authority when he grows up, won’t he?

Out of the corners of his eyes, he sees a large (red) skirt and a pair of (red) slacks step up. He suppresses a shiver. He can’t look at them, because if he does, they will know he can see them.

The more time goes on, the more Klaus comes to understand why he used to detest training so much. The largest reason being, the ghosts can recognize him. They feel a pull toward him, and once they finally figure out that he’s why they are attracted to the particular area, they barely leave him alone. Needless to say, training isn’t helping.

There are some nicer ghosts. The recently dead can present as very human, or at the very least similar, especially if they died non-violent deaths.

Of course, the recently deceased can be scary too. Usually when someone dies tragically and quickly, they are doomed to repeat their death until they can accept the end of their own lives. They are terrifying to look at, and boy how they scream, but they never directly bother him, or interact with him. Sometimes they are just quiet and far too still.

The worst kind, Klaus thinks, are the ghosts that have been trapped in purgatory longer than their souls can manage. They are _horrifying_ to look at, and they are positively feral. They are incapable of being reasoned with. He can see them reach out to hurt him, to kill him, and he has to rely on the power of his faith that tells him they are still incorporeal and he’s safe. 

His training is inconsistent. That’s what he hates most about it. It makes him feel guilty, because at least he isn’t being put under physical stress like Five or Luther, but it’s playing mind games on him.

There are days where Reginald exclusively asks him to speak to the dead. These are his least favorite days, and they often end up with Klaus being punished for being emotional. They leave him trembling for hours after, and Klaus finds himself laying down for naps he can’t take because of all of the screaming happening around him. 

But, completely conversely, there are days where all he does is sit peacefully. Now that he’s got his shoes off in their sessions, he’s performing much better with telekinesis. He breathes, and meditates, and enjoys the sensation of feeling present while he uses his power. It’s certainly difficult to relax around his father, but he’s learning how to do it. He’s sometimes unsuccessful, but he has patience, confidence, even. He knows he can make it happen, he’s good enough, and that takes the pressure off when he fails. 

His father has even given him _praise_ , on occasion, He offers a _well done_ or _excellent improvement, Number Four_ and Klaus finally understands why Luther is the way he is. The praise is like a drug, he never wants to _not_ have it, he wants to seek it out and perform for it. 

But other days, Klaus is screamed at, hit, shoved. Reginald’s strikes always come from frustration, rarely intent or planning, so it’s hard to tell himself it’s not his own fault, these days.

Sometimes he needs to listen to the ghosts, other times if he does he’ll stop paying attention and get slapped. Sometimes his mistakes are excused, other times they are unforgivable. It’s like there’s a list of rules that he doesn’t have access to. 

There’s a dichotomy that exists surrounding Reginald. Sometimes he’s proud, sometimes he’s just horrible, but somehow both of them are hurting him just the same.

For their eleventh birthday, they do the unthinkable. They sneak out.

Five is the one that proposes it. His power gives him way more freedoms than the rest of them, so he’s already taken to wandering outside at night. He knows there’s a donut shop within walking distance of their home called Griddy’s. 

The act in of itself is simply traitorous. Packing themselves full of unhealthy food that wasn’t on their meal plans, taking the things that belonged to their father the most, their health and strength, and sabotaging it with delicious snacks. It was everything short of shaking a hand in his face. (Five _really_ hates the man.)

The entire night feels like something of a fever dream. It was entirely unlike anything they had ever experienced or been accustomed to before. Doing the most normal thing possible when all you know is abnormal is _shocking,_ to say the least.

They all climb down Five’s fire escape in a rush. They are all so quietly apprehensive. Luther almost backs out multiple times, but Allison manages to drag him back into the operation. Diego’s all bravado and ego, he thinks he’s hot shit for leaving without being caught. Ben and Vanya are in awe, packed with a quiet kind of _taking everything in_. They’re trying to memorize everything, he can tell. Suck the magic of the night through a straw and keep it in a jar to revisit when they want to.

Klaus gets it, He’s somewhere there, too. But he’s on the opposite end of the spectrum, drunk on adrenaline and the newness of it all. He’s taking in the magic, but it’s a manic kind, not the calm basking sort that they’re doing.

They slide into a booth together, giddy with nerves and the sweet feeling of their first grand act of rebellion. They pay for their food with money that Five has found during his trips outside, that he _promises_ he didn’t steal. Klaus can tell from the way that his beady little eyes move that he’s totally lying, but he’s thankful for it, so he doesn’t call him out. 

He feels like he’s a part of something. He doesn’t know if it’s because he’s been doing better with the training lately, or that he’s changed since he’s started learning language. They look at him now sometimes and he feels seen, like he finally has earned his worth in the group. Under the fluorescents of the diner, their smiles all look much brighter, their laughs seem louder against the sounds of the night and the ambiance of cars on the roads outside. 

He feels like he’s falling in love with something, He doesn’t know what. It might be the feeling he gets knowing that he’s doing something he shouldn’t be, it might be the feeling of the camaraderie- he’s not exactly sure, there’s too many variables to take into account. But he knows that he wants to feel this again, wants to freeze time and live in this moment.

When they leave, Klaus pulls out the cassette player that he had received earlier for his birthday, subtly placed in his room as all of his gifts were. He puts a single headphone on so he can still listen and partake in any conversation that happens. He’s only been given two tapes, and one of them is classical, so now he listens to Bach and allows himself to be carried away by the emotion.

Diego throws up on the way back. Klaus is halfway between laughing at him and rubbing his back as he coughs. So he does both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry that this is late, folks. s2 gave me a uh... lot to unpack. im disappointed but its fine lol i'm still gonna finish this. this chapter is kind of a big boy so hope it made up for the delay xo  
> next chapter is the last before things go ass backwards and it gets real sad real quick. savor it!!  
> also if you look in the tags there will be nom, zero (0) incest in this fic, this is getting esp important as they are getting older and their relationships with each other become more personal and intimate. not in my own personal house. but like, no hate.


	8. Strength (Reversed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Via Bittytarot, "When the reversed Strength card appears in a Tarot reading, tune in to your current levels of inner strength, confidence and self-belief. Are you overflowing with self-confidence, or are you depleted?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is so late I'm so sorry.  
> cw: child abuse ! this one is pretty heavy take care of yourselves

They found out about Klaus’s powers for the first time when he was five, almost six years old. 

For a long time, it was him and Vanya against the world. Just the two of them, surrounded by their special brothers and sisters who were realizing that they were unique and valuable. However much he tries to change it, he spent those early years as nothing else but common, _ordinary_ , and he doesn’t know if it’s a role he can ever unlearn. 

Reginald was confident that Klaus had _something_ extraordinary brewing inside of him (his naturally gaunt, pale appearance and natural ability to make his general vicinity colder than the room’s average temperature dropped a few hints), but for years they failed to determine what Klaus’s oddities were. He was an enigma, a science experiment, a bundle of potential energy with no real outlet. For all they knew, Klaus’s odd, fearful reactions to his environment were just an example of an overactive imagination. Despite how Hargreeves tried, he never could discover how to see the spiritual plane like Klaus did.

They finally find out, in the end, because Klaus mentions the sight of an old nanny and it’s detailed enough their father finally tries to investigate.

At first, the discovery was confusing to him. How was he supposed to take the news that most, if not all, other people experienced a reality different than his own? Now that he knew there was a name for what he was experiencing, _mediumship,_ he felt like he should have all of the answers to his problems, when in actuality it felt like he had more questions than ever before. 

They were small, then, but Klaus can remember when he used to make his siblings cry. It was always accidental, when he was too caught up in his day-to-day to realize he also had to shield them from the reality of his own living. He would be just a few phrases into describing the ghosts to them, after excited questions like _what do the people we can’t see look like?_ And he’d forget to monitor them, only to turn back to see shaking and tears and brave sniffles.

So somewhere along the line, he simply elected to stop talking about it altogether. He perfected nervous, flighty laughter, learned how to shift his expression of discomfort to something more accommodating and open. He stopped talking about the ghosts. He put work into ignoring them so that they could too. He taught himself how to monitor the room’s temperature when he wasn’t even paying attention. He learned how to recognize just before when the screaming would get bad and discovered how to remove himself from an environment quickly and effectively. Sometimes it made him look foolish, but it was better than making them confront a reality they weren’t equipped to deal with. 

It was difficult, at first. He felt a very real pressure to assimilate and live up to the group’s standards, like he would be cast away if he showed weakness or hesitation. He could never positively identify with his powers or boast about them, which were all some of them wanted to do.

A potentially juvenile hope lingered. That Klaus _was_ powerful enough to learn how to hone his abilities, and there would be a day that he would figure it all out and never suffer again. _Now_ he hadn’t had enough training, but maybe he’d get there in the future. He’d be able to talk all about how he conquered them, and they would praise him and no one would be upset about the ghosts anymore. He never knew if he was reaching for straws, but he tried to keep it as a driving force.

This was his burden to deal with. It got easier when he was taken out of individual training. Suddenly, with no tie to the spirits, he could simply put his effort into tuning them out completely. And for now, it was working. 

For the most part. 

Klaus’s first thought upon climbing into the Hargreeves car for the first time in almost a year is, _Wow. I did not miss this._ It’s a relatively spacious vehicle, but cramming 6 super-powered kids into any enclosed space is a bad idea. He can already hear Luther and Diego bickering from the front row of seats, a noise that he would continue to hear until they reached the training facility, and maybe even after that too.

Logistically, it should have been obvious that he would be returning to group training eventually. He couldn’t get out of it forever, because apparently _cooperation and camaraderie are necessary between team-members to ensure the success of the team’s future missions._ Klaus knows it’s important, but it does nothing to stifle the anxiety festering within him.

Last time he was at this training facility was the incident that had gotten him temporarily removed from group training. Where he had witnessed a ghost make contact with the physical realm and _hit someone,_ an action which he had assumed to be impossible for years. 

When they arrive, it’s just as he remembers it. With wide open ceilings and cold hard floors and unforgiving fluorescent lights. The Umbrella Academy flutters into the room, fitting into their own morning routines, while Klaus is stuck taking it all in again. It doesn’t make his lungs constrict like some of the other rooms in the house do, but it still brings back oodles of unpleasant memories, even from before the incident. 

The rest of the siblings are just doing skirmishes today, or practicing their powers in pairs. Klaus moves to join them, but instead Hargreeves grabs him by his upper arm and begins to lead him away with more force than he feels is necessary. He turns over his shoulder to get one final glance at them and sees Ben, staring at him, chewing his cheek. He mouths a small “good luck,” barely detectable, but Klaus knows.

He’s taken down a hallway and through a door, leading to a small room he can only assume had been used in the past as storage space. The walls look scary and oppressive around him, just a little bit too close, but he tries to pay it no mind as he sits down in one of two chairs that have been placed in the room. Ever so prepared.

Reginald takes the chair opposite him. He seems to stay still as a rock while Klaus is squirming to get comfortable and not quite ever figuring out how.

He starts by clearing his throat, brash and powerful. Commanding. “Today, you’re not going to be training with your team-mates.”

Klaus’s skin is crawling, but he still has to make an effort not to smirk as he thinks, _uh, yeah, clearly_. “What am I going to be doing, sir?” He asks instead, smoothing over his tone with what he hopes is an air of nonchalance. 

“You’re going to be communing with some of the dead, here at the facility,” Hargreeves responds, and what little hope Klaus was retaining crumbles into dust. He detests these days of training, and they’re even worse when he isn’t familiar with the ghosts he’s summoning.

“But--” He begins before he can stop himself. Reginald shushes him just as quickly.

“Ah! You are not to argue with me or refuse. Remember what we previously discussed?”

Klaus reluctantly nods his head. 

When the idea was first proposed to him, he and Reginald had had a long talk about his return to the training facility. They mostly spoke about Klaus’s safety, and whether or not Reginald knew he would be safe around a ghost that had made contact with the physical realm. 

The answer had been an insistent and tired _yes._ That Klaus was safe, and he had used technology (!!!) to discover and prove it beyond a shadow of a doubt. He was aware of why the spirit had coincided in the mortal realm, and it was a fluke that would never happen again. Klaus didn’t think he was being silly for asking about it, but he eventually stopped pressing the matter when he noticed the way that Hargreeves was scowling down at him. 

Klaus lets out a sigh. “Yes, sir, I do.”

“Good.” He huffs and straightens his tie. “Then you are aware there is no need for theatrics.”

 _Theatrics_ meant crying, or panic attacks, or meltdowns. Klaus nods wordlessly. 

Reginald sighs and continues, “Your task today is to speak with the ghost who joined our plane and see if they are aware of their interference.” 

A moment passes where all Klaus does is gape across at him and process. _He wanted him to do what?_

He lets himself sit in the feeling for a minute. He wishes he could look him in the eyes and say, _I’ve had nightmares about this for almost a year now._ Tell him all about how he sometimes stays up at night for no reason at all, besides that he hates the way his room looks in the dark. About how he’s not confident one of the ghosts won't sweep him up and kill him any day now, because lord, have they been begging for the past 11 years, now. But under Hargreeves’ eyes, to have emotion is to have weakness, so he mustn't say anything about that.

 _Holy fuck, this is so ridiculous-funny,_ something in his brain says. _This is your life and you’re living in it._

So instead of telling him, he chokes out, _okay_ , and hangs his head low.

“You are to be given this space to avoid the commotion of your other team-mates’ training, but you are permitted to leave if you need to wander to manifest him,” Reginald says before standing to make his exit. Like _not being trapped_ in an old storage room was a privilege to be awarded. 

Klaus says nothing and watches him leave him alone without saying a single goodbye, or even wishing him luck. He doesn’t know why he expects different behavior.

He takes a deep inhale, holds it in the bottom of his lungs, and breaths out in the ‘box breaths’ that Ben taught him how to do. There’s no ghosts in there quite yet, so the only noise he notices are the soft groans of spirits lingering beyond the door. It’s peaceful and ominous at the same time. A safe space and a prison. What’s the difference, really? And why does he have to be the one to choose between them?

Eventually, the door being shut makes him too uncomfortable to ignore and he steps out into the hallway again. Around him, he can hear the faint shuffle of the workers, everywhere but doing _what, exactly?_ It’s distracting. He focuses harder, tries to look past the overstimulation, and hears the dead, allowing their voices to rise up above the living. 

There’s a reason he doesn’t like to do this. A deep chill settles into his bones and he suppresses a shiver as the misery consumes his mind. He can’t feel the ghost, but he remembers him and his energies. A compass within him _points._

He takes a deep breath, steels himself, and then starts walking. When he’s interacting with them like this, it’s harder not to flinch away because everything seems so _real._ The emotion and trauma surrounding all of the dead is so intense that he obtains a heaviness just from looking there. He tries not to shudder and side-steps around them, who are cluttering the hallway and making enough noise to hurt his ears. He gets stared at by some workers for dodging thin air, but he’s used to the embarrassment and it barely phases him anymore.

He’s reaching the end of the hallway when he knows he’s getting close. His gut is starting to tell him _yes here,_ so he stalls and turns to face a closed door. Before he can stop himself, he knocks.

He hears a gross, exaggerated sigh behind the door, and moments later, it swings open to reveal an older man, dressed in an oversized shirt littered with brown stains. Klaus looks him up and down, and then behind him, where the same ghost he’s been afraid of for a year is lounging in a lawn chair near a potted plant. It’s not how he expected this to go. 

“I need to talk to you,” Klaus says, staring intently behind the man. The ghost hasn’t looked up yet, lost in its own thoughts.

The man huffs a little and turns over his shoulder to find no one there. He’s looking at Klaus like he’s grown a few heads. “Huh? With you, kid?”

Klaus rolls his eyes and shakes his head, as if it should have been obvious. “I’m not talking to you. _J’ai besoin à vous parler.”_

The ghost shakes off his dissociation and furrows his brows before he finally looks up, seemingly unfazed by the language shift until he sees who it is. _Then_ the recognition flashes across his face and he’s scrambling up out of his seat, a little awkwardly. Klaus has to focus very hard on the feeling of his feet on the ground to avoid flinching or stepping backward. 

“ _Merci,”_ Klaus says, and flashes a polite smile, moving out of the way to let the spirit out the door and closing it behind him as he leaves. The last he sees of the worker is the stunned, fearful look on his face before he turns around and looks across the room, crossing his chest.

Klaus has to suppress a snicker. If there was one fun thing about his power, it was that he could scare people like that. It’s almost funny how effective the ‘supernatural child’ schtick is, especially on older people. Why shouldn’t he play into it, sometimes, just for a little bit of fun?

Klaus leads the way back through the hallway and to the storage closet. It’s easier to navigate now that he’s not between the land of the living and the dead. There are still ghosts, certainly, but they seem marginally further from him now that he’s protected by the veil that divides their two worlds.

Ever the gentleman, he holds the door open for him once they reach the closet. Last second, Klaus decides that the door can stay cracked. The idea of him trapped in a room with a ghost makes him shiver. 

When he turns back, the ghost has politely seated himself in the same chair that Klaus was in, before. He’s even looking a bit nervous and confused. It’s horrifically ironic, this entire situation. He finalizes it by taking Reginald’s seat across from him. 

“Bonjour _,”_ He begins simply. Like they were out for breakfast or something. Offhandedly, he notices he’s a little impressed that this ghost is still so conscious and cooperative. Usually by this point, they’ve started to deteriorate to inhuman behaviors. 

The ghost furrows his brows at him. “Bonjour,” he replies. “Tu peux-”

Klaus interrupts him. “Ouais, je peux vous voir,” _Yes, I can see you._ His accent is certainly rusty, but he’s got some practice from parroting the foreign films that Grace has given him. _I’m the one that can talk to dead people. Did you not know?_

The ghost shakes his head, quickly. _I don’t know why you children come here. This is not a place for children to be._

 _Well, I agree with you,_ Klaus says. _Do you have a name?_

The ghost laughs, small and sad and dejected. _I never thought that anyone would ask me that again. My name is Alexandre._

It’s such a normal name. Klaus has a pang of sonder where he imagines the short but intricate life that this man led. It makes his brain hurt, so instead he changes the subject. _Why are you still here?_ He asks. _Why don’t you…_ but then he doesn’t know how to translate ‘move on’ idiomatically, so he rephrases. _Did you see a light? Why didn’t you go?_

Alexandre shakes his head, and his voice goes a little cool. _The man that you spoke to killed me and my family. We were innocent of the crimes he thought that we committed. I follow him now. I’m not sure why, but--_

Klaus interrupts him with a wince. “Doucement,” _Slowly, please. This isn’t my first language._

Alexandre nods, shaking off some of the bitterness in his words. _Really, I feel that I need to be here. My life is not finished, and I continue it in my death._

That’s what all of them say. He tries to imagine that it means something, despite the same logical fallacy torturing millions of ghosts every day. None of them would ever see any change as a result of their presence. He sighs and shakes his head, slowly. _I’m sorry._

Alexandre just sits there, like he knows there’s nothing that can be done but he’s unwilling to say it out loud. _You need to be careful, small one. Your father is a dangerous man. I don’t know anything about him, but if he’s working with these men, he must be truly evil._

It’s not like Klaus didn’t know that, but the confirmation sends a shiver down his spine. There’s a brewing threat he feels whenever he’s around Reginald, like any day now he’ll boil over and dissect one of them. 

_Do you remember the last time we met?_ Klaus asks, instead of commenting on his father.

He nods solemnly and plays with his hands under the table, like an ashamed child. _I am very sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you that day._

Before he knows why, Klaus is suppressing a burst of laughter. A ghost apologizing for scaring him? Feeling guilty? It was practically unheard of.

“Je sais,” _I know,_ Klaus says honestly. _It’s just, there are more unkind ghosts than kind. It’s rare for me to speak with someone as… present, as you._

Alexandre nods, a ‘ _you don’t have to tell me twice’_ kind of gesture. 

_Anyways,_ Klaus begins, and something turns in his gut at the anticipation. _Do you know what happened that day? Why could you touch him?_

Alexandre lets out a huff of air, a thoughtful kind of exhale. _It was so bizarre. I had never seen it happen before, and the look on the other ghosts’ faces said that they hadn’t either. It was--_

And then he pauses, and his mouth falls open a little, giving Klaus a once-over. _You don’t know what happened?_

Klaus shakes his head. _No, that’s why I’m asking you._

“Klaus,” Alexandre says. There’s a moment where time freezes, and all Klaus is thinking about is the way his name sounds in his mouth. The accent affects the vowel and makes it longer. He wonders how many different versions of him exist in people’s minds, how many people have put their own little twist on him on their tongue. “Tu l'as fait.” _It was you._

He freezes. That would be horrible. That would be exactly Klaus’s worst nightmare, to know that he was capable of allowing the ghosts to tear him limb from limb, and he had no idea how to control it.

_He sputters; No, no, there’s no way. I would know--_

Unless... he didn’t know. Because he had all kinds of crazy powers popping up these days, so it was entirely possible there was more that he had yet to discover. 

Klaus shakes his head, stronger this time. _How do you know that it was me?_

Alexandre’s words are insistent. _Your hands had turned blue. They were glowing just before it happened, I was watching._

 _I don’t understand,_ Klaus whines. _My father would have told me, he said he knew I was safe--_

But, would he have even known that he had done it? Hargreeves was never paying any attention to him, always watching his siblings during training as they perfected their other, more useful powers. 

God, it was true. Reginald had no idea what had happened that day, or if it would ever happen again. He’d lied to him, straight through his teeth, to get Klaus to stop asking about if he was safe. 

_I--_ Klaus sits in stunned silence. _I don’t even know how I did it._ Could he do it right now? What if he did it in his sleep?

 _I’m sorry,_ Alexandre says, and it seems sincere, despite the fact that it also sounds underwater. _I thought that you knew._ His eyes flit behind him, and eventually focus, until they widen slightly in fear.

Klaus turns over his shoulder, where an older male ghost with bruises around his neck has slipped into the room and is watching their conversation with intrigue. “You… can you make me real again?”

Klaus’s brain is moving at a mile a minute and he chokes out, “no, no. You must have misheard, my French isn’t very good--”

But more are already gathering nearby, having heard the news. When he turns back, Alexandre is watching with pity in his eyes. _What a large burden you have. Leave, you should leave here._

Klaus doesn’t have to be told twice. He looks him in the eyes and says a very sincere _thank you_ and then he’s running out of the door, squeezing his lanky body in between the ever-present ghosts of the hallway to avoid the chill they bring with them. The walls seem to lengthen, and the corridor grows more narrow. He almost trips over his feet, but scrambles up before they have time to catch up to him. 

By the time he gets to the main training room, there are tear tracks cascading down his cheeks. They all stop immediately when they hear the tell-tale slap of his feet hitting the floor reverberating across the tall ceilings. His crying sounds loud against the silence.

Ben tries to reach out for him, calling his name, but he ignores him and moves straight towards his father. “You said I was safe,” Klaus sobs.

Reginald turns his nose up at him. “Number Four, I’ve told you before. I will not have a civil conversation with you when you are in this state.”

Klaus blinks, and then _laughs._ “Civil conversation?” Speaking English feels so much easier after having gotten used to speaking in French, so the words are falling out faster than he can process or censor them. “Did you know it was me? How could you lie to me like that? Do you know how afraid I am that this could even happen?”

Behind him, Allison approaches, trying to soothe Klaus with low words. Klaus can only flinch away, because behind them all, the noises of the dead are gradually starting to fill the room, like the steady drip of an IV.

“And how many times have I told you that your fear is only preventing the development of your power?” Hargreeves snaps. The room is too silent beyond their shouting.

Klaus hiccups and wipes his face. “So you did know. _Dad_ , _they want to kill me,”_ he whimpers.

“Don’t call me that,” he scolds in reply.

He just collapses into himself, shoulders shaking as he cries. “Oh, sorry, _Dad._ I didn’t know you cared so _fucking little_ about losing your precious toys--”

“ _ENOUGH,”_ Hargreeves finally snarls, and reels back and _hits him._

Klaus knows he’s really messed up this time. It hurts, it hurts so bad, he got him right on the cheekbone and side of his face. 

When he looks up from where he’s doubled over, Hargreeves’ hands are still shaking at his sides. The tension in the room seems to climax and the tears are still falling, but his mouth snaps shut. 

Hargreeves walks up and snatches Klaus’s arm, hard enough to bruise, as he starts to tug him out of the wide room. Briefly, he turns over his shoulder to address the others in the same horrible tone. “You all are to stay here and continue your training while I take Number Four to learn his lesson. I should return in time to take you all back home.”

Klaus turns too, and expects to see annoyed or disappointed faces. Instead, all of his siblings are staring at him with _terror_ in their eyes. Ben is the last one he sees, and he’s crying too, but then he’s tugged especially hard through a door and he loses sight of him.

Reginald opens the car door and shoves him in, closing it behind him with an especially loud _slam_. Klaus, in his brief moment alone, touches his face and he finds that he just can’t stop crying. His throat is beginning to hurt from the strain.

When Reginald gets in the car and turns his key in the ignition, he’s muttering to himself angrily, about how he _“has always hated children”_ and how he _“never should have bought them.”_ When they pull out, he’s speeding. Absentmindedly, Klaus hopes they get into a crash. However bad that was, it would probably be more merciful than what Hargreeves was planning.

Klaus knew what fear was before today, but his past experiences pale in comparison to the fear that he’s feeling now. Alexandre’s words reply in his head; _your father is a dangerous man. He must be truly evil._ He doesn’t know what he’s about to do to him, but he knows there’s little that he shouldn’t prepare himself for.

When they arrive at a graveyard and Reginald stops the car, he’s shaking so hard that he isn’t sure that his legs will carry him where they need to go. The ghosts are everywhere, a full mob outside of the car window. But it doesn’t matter, because Reginald is tugging him so hard that he’d probably be moving if he were dead weight. 

The October air is cold, especially in the shorts of his uniform. Hargreeves finally stops in front of an old mausoleum, where he moves to rifle through a key ring on his hip and open the padlock that hangs from the door. “Number Four,” he’s out of breath just from his anger. “It is necessary that you learn how to respect your superiors. Unless you want to stay so useless for your entire life.”

The words feel like a punch to the gut, but he’s not quite present enough to react. It’s familiar, this place. He feels like the breath is being stolen from him just from being here. 

Then the door opens. Klaus sees the inside of the room with the light that pours in, and the ghosts inside are no longer human. Some of them all on all fours, some of their mouths have grown to take up most of their faces. They all stare at him, and he can see hunger in their eyes.

But then, he looks past them, at the room itself. _That’s_ when he goes pale and immediately throws up into the grass. “No, no, you can’t put me in there--” he protests--

But Hargreeves grabs him again and starts to drag him closer. His knees are weak, he’s shaking, he tries to gain some traction into the dirt, but there’s no use. He’s crying too hard to put up a legitimate fight. He pushes him back into the room, and the impact of the stone floor is hell on his back and ribs. “Dad-- Sir-- no, get me out, you leave to let me out--”

“You are to get over this _embarrassing_ fear of the dead, Number Four.” It doesn’t sound like he’s giving him an option, his name is poison on his lips. “Your weaknesses are exploitable, and you must remove them.” 

He’s begging, now, but Hargreeves doesn’t seem to care. He simply steps out and shuts the door, surrounding him in the cold darkness. Around him, the ghosts begin to close in. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow that one kicked my ass. It's only getting sadder from here boys!  
> follow me on tumblr @ macaronigrilleao3 if you want updates in between chapters so u know im not gonna disappear


	9. Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I want to love, I've all the wrong glory."

He’s been here before. 

He knows he has, he’s never been more sure about anything. it’s all too familiar, the bone-deep chill, the lightheadedness that consumes him whenever he reminds himself that he’s tucked in an enclosed space with no way out. He’s had nightmares about this, before. Frequently.

He’s been having nightmares about this since he was 8 years old.

God, he’s really never gonna be okay, is he?

His hands have been tightly clamped around his neck since he entered, and he didn’t know why his instinct was telling him to do that, until the ghosts started trying to _claw out his throat, fucking tear out his throat, put it between their teeth._

A very sad, hurt part of him wants to be torn up when Reginald finds him again. He wants him to open the doors to see his body mangled in a heap, just like Klaus warned him. He wants this to be done, he doesn’t know how long he can take this--

 _Can_ he take this? Can he take the knowledge that Reginald knows, now? He’s a smart man, and he _knows_ that putting him in here could kill him if he makes them corporeal. Klaus has told him all about the ghosts, he knows they’re violent, he knows they’re dangerous, and that Klaus could fucking kill himself right now if he makes them corporeal. But he’s not quite sure how. 

Or, rather, how _not_ to.

He’s wedged into the corner and shaking like a leaf as he makes eye contact with a hunched figure in the corner, with an unhinged jaw and empty eyes. He doesn’t dare look away, because it certainly seems like it’s challenging him. 

_Klaus,_ they say, and they don’t stop. _Klaus, Klaus, Klaus. Klaus, you have to help me. Klaus, look at me. Klaus, blood warm?_

A wobble is starting to bubble up inside of his throat, the kind that says _we’ve had a very long day with no time to process it, so I think I might either laugh or cry, and never stop._

Ben hears Klaus before he sees him. _24 full hours after his episode._

He’s with Diego in the living room, procrastinating before their studies when they hear him, hollering, echoing out from the streets. For a moment, it’s impersonal (in the city, there’s a surprising amount of people screaming outside their door on any given day), but then the sound gets louder and he knows something fucking _terrible_ has happened, because that’s his _brother_. His voice is familiar as always, even when he’s hearing it in these horrible high-pitched shrieks that sound more animal than child. 

His gut sinks from within him and all he feels is this devastating fearful dread. He and Diego lock eyes and scramble to the hall towards the entrance.

Their doorknob turns, frantically, quickly--

And his limbs lock up and his blood curdles at the _screech_ as it echoes across the tile and over the stairwell; blind, unadulterated _terrorfearpanic._ It’s easily ten times louder than it was before, with how the noise echoes off of the mansion’s high ceilings. Ben doesn’t think he’s ever heard that much distress in a sound in his life, just feels something quake in him as he watches the door get thrown open haphazardly. 

Hargreeves is tugging Klaus into the building but he’s _fighting him,_ or at least trying to. His limbs are flailing about violently, scrambling for any upper hand he can receive. It’s panicked and messy, nothing like the careful training they’d all received, just pure panic.

And then, Ben can get a proper look at him, and _god_ , he’s in a bad way. There’s blood covering his arms, some dried in the shapes of scratches, and his face and shirt collar are drenched with tears. His eyes dart around the room, but they never linger or see his surroundings. He’s paler than a sheet and shaking like a leaf, covered in dust and dirt and soaked through with sweat. It’s like he’s just run a marathon.

He doesn’t look like Klaus, not even slightly. There’s no personality laced through his movements like there usually is, there’s nothing he can recognize beyond his physical features. He’s hysterical. Reginald is trying to manage his resistance, but his physique is little match for the adrenaline coursing through Klaus’s system, and he can only _just_ manage to get him on the floor and pin him down.

 _“Boys!”_ Hargreeves shouts out over the screaming, noticing him and Diego. His voice is unsteady from the exertion and he can’t even look at the two of them, Klaus is struggling against him so hard. _“_ Come help me hold him down! _POGO!”_

Ben can’t move. His mouth is hanging open and he’s just watching, staring at his brother. By the looks of it, Diego’s no better off.

 _“Get over here this instant!”_ Hargreeves spits. They do nothing. Under him, Klaus’s screams are starting to disintegrate into hysterical sobbing and wailing, but he’s still wriggling, trying to pry himself from Sir’s grasp. It’s no better than the shrieking because now he just sounds _broken._

There’s a bit of a commotion from the top of the staircase, and when Ben turns his head, Pogo is clambering down the steps with a syringe in his hand, looking uncomfortable but not panicked, or shocked. Entirely too casual. Ben doesn’t know how anyone could be calm in a situation like this. He feels like he’s about to tear into two pieces.

Pogo kneels by Reginald’s side, and Klaus shows no acknowledgement of his presence, just squeezes his eyes shut and yells and shakes. He grimaces, “ _Stay still, Master Klaus,”_ and hikes up his shorts and inserts the needle right into his thigh. 

Beside him, Ben can hear Diego _gasp._ He reaches over and grabs his hand.

Klaus puts up a fight for another few _minutes._ The injection inspires him to redouble his efforts, tossing and turning his body, but it’s eventually futile as they watch the drug overcome him. His movements grow weak, and he keeps sobbing, but he’s beginning to trail off. 

And then, finally, his muscles relax. Eventually all he is is a crumpled heap on the floor, collapsed under Hargreeves’ grasp. He looks like a marionette.

It’s still, and silent. More silent than Ben can ever remember this hallway being. Reginald sits on the floor beside him, winded, and Pogo finally has found the decency to look guilty. From the hallway, Grace comes power-walking in with a stretcher at her side. This is the only time she’s not programmed to have a smile, when she’s playing nurse. 

Then Reginald turns to stare at them. There’s fire in his eyes, the type of anger that toys the line from hatred. It makes Ben immediately tear up.

“I trust that you’re able to carry on with your usual activities, hm?” He asks, his eyes shifting between then conspiratorially. It’s a threat, and Ben knows better than to not take it seriously.

Diego inhales and starts to open his mouth, but Ben beats him to the punch. “Yes sir,” he says, and looks down at the floor. He knows as soon as it leaves his mouth that it was the wrong thing to do, the guilt creeps up cold and unforgiving. Klaus deserves better than their acquiescence. 

But Hargreeves stands and brushes himself off, leaving Grace and Pogo to tend to Klaus without another word. 

Klaus wakes up in a tiled room, still half asleep, the sedative coursing through his system still threatening to take him under. But he can’t relax, because every nerve in his body is telling him _run, you aren’t safe, fucking get out of there_. His eyes are bleary as he blinks, but the adrenaline comes in like high tide until his hands are shaking. Where was he? Does he need to run? Does he need to fight?

He’s covered in something. It’s soft. His sight finally comes into focus and he recognizes the sheets he’s under; he’s in the infirmary. 

Then it all comes back at once. The facility. Alexandre. The mausoleum. 

It seems like it was all a dream. The full body ache and itch of tape over scratches healing on his arms tells him differently.

When he thinks back, he can remember the first time Reginald put him there. He doesn’t think he’s ever forgotten it, he just dismissed the experience as a figment of his overactive imagination, or a nightmare.

The memory is vague and unclear, but it’s there, mapped out in mostly sensory details like the smell of the place. Klaus thinks he might have even _held his hand_ on the way in, ever so trusting of his father and his intentions. Back then, he didn’t know what evil was, and he especially never looked for it in his own home.

But then the door shut, and he was in the dark, and Reginald was gone, and he didn’t answer, no matter how loud or long he yelled. 

Back then, he didn’t know that was abuse. He didn’t know that Reg would ever put him in danger or punish him unjustly. He just assumed that, at least, the abandonment had been an honest mistake, that maybe the stone walls were thick enough that he couldn’t hear him screaming. 

From the corner, the door creaks open, and Vanya tiptoes into the room, with fear-- no, concern-- in her eyes. Behind her, Five is slinking in, his usual precise and calculated movements rather sluggish. He freezes at the sight of him bolt-upright in bed, and exclaims, “Klaus!”, jumping to his bedside--

And in response Klaus _recoils,_ hard and unmistakable. He doesn’t mean to, but the motion was too fast, and he’s far too accustomed to his name being spoken by the undead. It feels dirty, is that still his name? He’s read structuralist theory, he knows words are just sounds, and that people assign significance to them to suit a purpose, fulfill a meaning. Now, _Klaus_ doesn’t mean _him._ It’s not an alive word anymore. 

Vanya’s movements immediately still, halfway across the room. Beside him, Five gasps and stutters backward a step to give him space.

There’s a moment that passes where they all stare at each other in shocked silence. Klaus can see the wheels turning in Five’s head, he’s _staring_ at him and his eyes are piercing and teary; meanwhile Vanya is struck with a horrible look that seems a lot like pity. It makes something inside him wanna crawl.

“Klaus,” Five says again, loud in the silence of the room. Softer, quieter. It’s just as horrible as before, because this time it’s _loving._

How can a word be so disgusting and so comforting? It sends him to so many places: the cold horror of the tomb, the freedom of having been given the gift of individuality. It’s the only symbol of his identity that he owns, outside of his powers; it’s always been a source of solace, despite the ghosts. He feels like he’s about to split into two.

He looks between them again, Vanya, Five. Vanya who cried when he stepped on ants, Five who has _always_ cared for him, in a wise and serious kind of way. They are his family. 

He’s sick of it, he just wants to _rest,_ but before he can suppress it, a sob escapes his throat and then he’s dissolving, coming apart finally. He is in a million pieces around himself, he doesn’t know how he’s ever collect them all together into a cohesive thing, but that’s okay, because there’s no ghosts in the corners yet, no beasts threatening to take him under _._ _He’s safe. He’s safe. He’s finally safe._

(He’ll never be safe, really, never again. He will never trust Hargreeves again for as long as he lives. And he knows that. But he’s out of that _fucking dungeon_ so he’s safer than he was before. He survived.)

And then he can’t stop, he just holds the sheets up to his eyes and buries his face into them, until all he knows are the tears that are flowing and the tightness in his throat from the past day’s sobbing. He senses them come closer, and then an arm wraps around him that is unmistakably Five _(_ “ _Bro, everything about you is stiff and celibate”)_ and he leans in, when is the last time he felt a warm touch?

“We missed you, Klaus,” Five says. It’s reserved, but it’s still powerful.

He sucks in a deep breath, then exhales, and all of the stress is finally washed away until all that remains is overwhelming fatigue. He rubs his eyes with the sheets and then picks his face up so he can slowly sink back into his hospital bed. Vanya and Five are watching him with suspicion, but he can’t quite bring himself to care. Something as small as embarrassment doesn’t seem to phase him anymore. 

He’s just tired. He can tell his brain is building blocks around the trauma, trying to dissociate himself from the events his body is still processing. He’s fiddling with his hands, he knows he’s moving them, but he can’t feel them sliding against each other.

“What happened to you, Klaus?” Vanya asks. “Do you remember what happened?”

Klaus nods, slowly, pensively. He doesn’t know if that’s the right answer, it’s all a little fuzzy, moreso when he started to run out of sleep. But he knows what happened, and he isn’t confused. 

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he says simply, tiredly, because he _doesn’t._ He barely has the words to describe what just happened to _himself_ , he has no idea how he’ll explain it to Vanya, the sweetest of them all.

Five nods, curt and understanding. Vanya’s lip wobbles and she struggles to maintain her tone as she says, “Klaus, you’ve been gone for over a day and unconscious for _hours now,_ we didn’t know where you _were--_ ”

“I know,” he replies, and reaches out to take her in and hold her. Just as touch-starved as he is, she wiggles into him until they’re glued together, pressed into his chest. Her back shakes as she quietly cries, soaking the silk of his pajamas. 

“I”m okay,” he soothes. “I’m here, aren’t I? I’m okay, you don’t have to worry about me, little sis.” 

It’s empty, and he knows it. Five must, too. He averts his eyes and stares at the floor.

He’s got a brief memory of the aftermath, from the first time. It’s hazy, but he knows that was the beginning of his long-term opposition to training. This time will be nowhere near as easy as the first to handle.

Footsteps sound down the hallway, heavy and pounding, and then the door _whips_ open and Diego is the one behind it. It makes Klaus flinch at first, but he’s so excited to see him he doesn’t even care. He’s gentle, but he makes quick work of disloging Vanya and planting a kiss on her head before he goes straight to Diego for a hug.

To his surprise, Diego hugs him back, _immediately_. He doesn’t even pretend to be annoyed by it. He presses his palm to the back of his head and holds him tight against him. Diego has always been so solid and tangible, Klaus misses when he could find refuge in his grounding touches. 

He’s released with a squeeze after a long moment where Klaus starts to think he’ll never breathe again. “Klaus, we were so worried about you, what happened?--”

But he can’t answer, because he looks behind him, and Ben is standing in the doorway with red-rimmed eyes. He looks like an absolute mess. All of them are somewhat disheveled, but Klaus can read Ben like a book, they are written with the same ink, and he is _unwell._

“Ben,” he chokes out, and they meet in the middle of their shared space in a bone crushing hug.

“Are you okay?” Ben asks, smoothing over his back. Coming back to Ben always feels like reuniting with something missing from himself. “Are you hurt? God, Klaus, what did he do to you?” He pulls away and looks at his face, places his hands on his shoulders and skirts them down to examine the bandages on his arms. For a moment, all he can do is revel in his touch, so distinctly Ben.

Klaus off his concerns and gives Ben a once-over in return. “I’m fine, Ben, Jesus, are _you_ okay?”

Ben raises his eyebrows and lets out a shocked, cold sort of chuckle. “Klaus, you can’t be serious. You were gone for _24 hours straight_ after training and you’re gonna ask me how _I’m_ doing?”

Well, yeah, that seemed kind of silly in retrospect, but his brain was functioning at poor capacity and it was barely his own fault. 

“I’ll tell you later,” Klaus says and shakes his head. “Not right now. Right now, I need to get like 12 hours of sleep.”

Ben’s face falls _._ “Did you not sleep last night, Klaus?” He asks. In his periphery, Diego straightens. 

He shrugs, “I’ll tell you later,” and gives the room a final thankful eye before stumbling out, drunk from sleep deprivation. 

He lays down in his bed. He falls asleep quickly, having been starved for it for so long now. It doesn’t last. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you guys again i am so sorry this is late. i am very picky about only putting out content i'm proud of and with school it is difficult! to do that.  
> please leave comments yall approval is my fuel ! thank u for reading


End file.
